Brunswick Corp. continues to be hammered by weak demand for its boats and otherproducts. The parent of Knoxville-based Sea Ray Boats, said Thursday it lost $163.7 million, or $1.85 per diluted share.
That’s up sharply from a loss of $6 million, or 7 cents per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2008.
However, the Lake Forest, Ill., company said that its liquidity is strong, with more than $460 million in cash on hand, $100 million of which was generated during the most recent quarter.
Excluding a restructuring charge and tax benefit, the company lost $1.50 per share, which missed the $1.36 per share loss forecast by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
Net sales for the quarter ended July 4 were $718.3 million, down 52 percent from from $1.485 billion a year earlier, primarily due to a 56-percent drop in marine sales.
“Global demand for our products continues to be constrained across all of our businesses and is consistent with the trends experienced in the previous two quarters,” said Brunswick’s Chairman and CEO Dustan E. McCoy said in a statement.
The company has closed several plants and laid off thousands of workers in the past year in an effort to manage costs and reduce inventory.
“We continue to successfully manage our operations for cash and maintain excellent levels of liquidity. At the end of the second quarter, we had more than $460 million of cash, a $144 million and $102 million increase from year-end and previous quarter levels, respectively,” McCoy said.
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