Alcoa Fastening Sees Strong Quarterly Performance

Jason Sandefur

Continued strong performance from Alcoa Fastening Systems helped parent company Alcoa Inc. post a 12.5% sales increase in its Engineered Solutions segment to $1.25 billion during the third quarter of 2005. Seasonal weakness in the automotive markets pushed segment profit down 18% to $32 million.
In the first nine months of 2005 Engineered Solutions segment revenue rose 9,5% to $3.8 billion, while operating income slipped 11% to $151 million.
In its quarterly report Alcoa touted two upcoming AFS manufacturing sites outside Shanghai as evidence of the company’s continued success. AFS announced in September that it plans to build two 50,000 sq ft facilities in China to make aerospace and railway fasteners. The facilities are expected to employ a minimum of 250 workers by 2007.
Overall Q3 revenues grew 13% to $6.56 billion, while net income improved 2% to $289 million. Nine-month sales for Alcoa increased 13% to $19.5 billion, but net income dropped 3% to $1 billion. Web: alcoa.com �2005 FastenerNews.com