Haven't seen the PR yet, but they sent this in an email. Another poor result, I would say.


NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- American Vanguard Corporation (NYSE:AVD), today announced financial results for the three and nine month periods ended September 30, 2009.

Fiscal 2009 Third Quarter Financial Highlights – versus Fiscal 2008 Third Quarter:

Net sales were $66.4 million compared to $67.6 million.
Net income was $2.1 million compared to $6.0 million.
Earnings per diluted share were $0.08 versus $0.22.
Fiscal 2009 Nine Month Financial Highlights – versus Fiscal 2008 Nine Month Results:

Net sales were $158.5 million compared to $166.5 million.
Net income was $2.8 million compared to $12.1 million.
Earnings per diluted share were $0.10 versus $0.44.
Eric Wintemute, President and CEO of American Vanguard, stated: “Amidst challenging conditions in the Ag Chemical marketplace presently, we delivered quarterly sales revenues roughly equal to the same period last year. While some of our product portfolio outperformed the prior year period, we were negatively impacted by diminished sales of two very important seasonal contributors. Reduced demand for our Dibrom® mosquito adulticide resulted from less hurricane related precipitation in the Gulf Coast region. Relative to a very strong season in 2008, sales of this highly profitable mosquito eradicator were off by about 70% this year. Additionally, quarterly global sales of our leading fungicide product were about 35% below the prior year, as a result of reduced demand in international markets.

“As we previously reported, we have reacted to recent softness in domestic market demand by scaling back the production output of our manufacturing facilities in order to refrain from building excess inventories. Running factories at reduced operating rates has made it necessary to expense unabsorbed overheads resulting in lower gross profit margins. Indeed, the combination of lower sales of high margin products like Dibrom and the expensing of unabsorbed manufacturing costs has resulted in diminished profitability in the current quarter.”

Mr. Wintemute continued: “We have made significant progress toward the balance sheet objectives that we established in our last quarterly report to shareholders. During the current quarter, we reduced inventory levels by over 10%, maintained our diligence in receivables collection and generated sufficient cash to reduce the outstanding balance on our revolving credit line by over 35%.”

Mr. Wintemute concluded, “Our organization is focusing its full attention on improving our operating performance, achieving better financial results and strengthening our corporate balance sheet.”