GenCorp posts profit in first-quarter results

GenCorp on Wednesday reported a $3.3 million profit from its continuing operations in the first quarter of 2008, as it reduced expenses related to environmental cleanup and retirement benefits.

The earnings, amounting to 6 cents a share, also reflected growth in sales of several missile and propulsion systems. Rancho Cordova-based GenCorp had a loss of $2.1 million, or 4 cents a share, on continuing operations in the first quarter of 2007.

"We are pleased with Aerojet's sales growth in the first quarter," Scott Neish, GenCorp's interim president and CEO, said in a statement. "The year-over-year increase represents a good start to 2008 in meeting the challenge of replacing the financial impact of our successful Titan engine program."

Neish also noted that the company achieved a milestone by attaining government permission to develop 2,300 acres of its land in the Rio del Oro project of Rancho Cordova.

This week the company got state clearance to develop the land after years of cleanup by its Aerojet subsidiary, which had dumped chemicals in earlier decades of rocket testing. The company now has approval to develop 5,400 of the 6,400 acres it plans for new homes and businesses in eastern Sacramento County.

Overall profit was $3 million, or 5 cents a share, for the quarter ended Feb. 29. The aerospace and defense company had extraordinary gains in the first quarter of 2007 from the sale of its Fine Chemicals business, boosting net income to $28.5 million, or 51 cents.

Revenue totaled $176.6 million, compared with $150.8 million in a year-earlier quarter that contained one less week. The lion's share of revenue came from Aerojet's work on the Standard and TOW military missiles along with NASA's Orion program, which helped offset the close-out activities of the Titan program last year.

Gencorp also reported it had $980 million in contracts on order as of Feb. 29. About a third of that still requires funding approval from Congress, it said.

Aerojet is working on a booster stage and a stabilizing system for the Ares rocket, which is planned for use in the Orion program that aims to put astronauts back on the moon in the next decade.

Gencorp's stock rose to $11.50 a share, up 47 cents, in trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

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