Ennis, Inc. Reports Print Sales Up, Apparel Sales Down

Ennis, Inc., (UPIC: ennis), one of the largest private-label printed business product suppliers in the U.S., reports consolidated net sales of $142.5 million for the first quarter ended May 31, 2012 compared to $143.3 million for the quarter ended May 31, 2011. Print sales for the current quarter were $87.3 million, compared to $67.1 million for the same quarter last year, or an increase of 30.1 percent. Apparel sales for the current quarter were $55.2 million, compared to $76.1 million for the same quarter last year, or a decrease of 27.5 percent.

Keith Walters, chairman, chief executive officer and president, says, “Our print operations continued to deliver revenue and operational results as expected. The two new acquisitions (Printegra and PrintXcel) delivered sales of $19.6 million for the quarter, which was slightly higher than expected, and operational profits of $.8 million, which was less than expected due to some duplicate transitional costs and some operational inefficiency, which we expect to have corrected over the next several quarters.

“Our apparel results, as expected, continue to be negatively impacted by higher raw material costs flowing into cost of sales. This negative impact will gradually abate over the next quarter or two as the higher cost items, which have been in our finished goods inventory and flowing into our cost of sales, are replaced with items manufactured with significantly lower raw material costs.

“The apparel market continues to be somewhat constrained, from a volume perspective, and pricing in the marketplace continues to be highly competitive. While the apparel sector continues to be somewhat challenged, we feel good about the long-term prospects of both sectors.”