Tyco. the maker of Nashua Duct Tape, appears to be turning around its business performance.  Here's some info!

Tyco profit soars on cost cuts and sales  

   From news reports AP, Reuters  Wednesday, May 5, 2004 

 TRENTON, New Jersey The industrial conglomerate Tyco International said Tuesday that its second-quarter profit surged as costs fell and sales and operating income rose.

.The company, based in West Windsor, New Jersey, also raised its earnings forecast for the full year.

.Tyco, with businesses involved in health care, fire and security, electronics and engineered products, said it earned $782.4 million, or 37 cents a share, for the January-March period, up more than fivefold from $124.3 million, or 6 cents a share, a year earlier, when it absorbed $473 million in one-time charges.

.Excluding one-time charges of 4 cents a share in the latest quarter, Tyco would have earned 41 cents a share. That beat the 36 cents that analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call forecast.

"This is a dramatic change from where we were in early 2003," Dave Fitzpatrick, chief financial officer, said.

Tyco said revenue for the quarter rose 12 percent, to $8.99 billion. More than 8 percentage points of that increase, however, was from favorable foreign currency exchange rates.

Tyco's chief executive, Edward Breen, is improving profit margins after working to repair Tyco's finances since he succeeded L. Dennis Kozlowski in 2002. Breen cut jobs, closed plants and paid debt in the quarter as currency gains and a rebounding U.S. economy lifted sales. Health care was the biggest contributor to profit as sales of prefilled syringes and safety needles climbed.

"He's done what I would call business 101, initially stabilizing and now focusing in on and emphasizing of greater profitability," said Donald Yacktman of Yacktman Asset Management.

Tyco raised its earnings guidance for its 2004 fiscal year to $1.52 to $1.58 a share, up from $1.42 to $1.52. Analysts were expecting $1.51. Shares of the company were up $1.02, or 3.7 percent, to $29 in afternoon trading.

Breen said the company has been benefiting from an improving global economy, while cutting costs, improving cash flow and paying down debt.

Breen said net debt now stood at $14.6 billion after paying down $1.2 billion in the quarter, and cash flow from operating activities rose to $1.8 billion, from $1.4 billion a year ago.

Since Tyco announced a restructuring program last November, it has eliminated about 4,100 of its 260,000 jobs, closed 110 facilities and completed 10 divestitures of 50-plus businesses it plans to leave. (AP, Bloomberg)