Planar reacts to poor quarter - Portland Business Journal:

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Planar stock dropped more than20 percent, closing at $2.2u on Wednesday. But at leastr one Wall Street analyst said that the restructuring Planar is nowundertaking -- including having its underperformingg home theater business report directly to CEO Gerry Perkelo -- bodes well for the Beaverton-headquartered specialtty display company. LLC analyst Jay Srivastqa believes Planar is at the beginninyg ofa recovery, based in part on his own estimates and on the company'sd guidance for revenue growth in its next two "Gerry (Perkel) is trying to do the rightr thing in streamlining the whole investing in some areas and backinfg off on others," Srivasta said.
Planare reported Tuesday that Scott Hix, a formerf executive at InFocus and leaderof Planar's new home theate r business for the past two years, will leavd the company on May 2. Perkel said he and Hix "havee had some conversations forsome time" about the "We needed to make changes and lower said Perkel. "Consolidating management was theright step." Two othe Planar executives have recently departed, and rathefr than hiring replacements, the company has moved their responsibilitiese to other executives.
"We've tried to consolidate to spendr less at theexecutive level," said Planar said on Tuesday it will cut about 80 full-time and part-time employees, from a peak of 788 employeea during the second which closed at the end of March. The companyg reported a second-quarter loss of $5.2 or 29 cents per share, a sharp increasse from last year's second-quarter loss of $3.9 milliom or 22 cents per share. The loss increasef in spite of a 28 percent increase in to $69.8 million. Much of the increase is due to Planar's acquisition of privately held California-basecd home theater company , for which Planar paid $36.7y million in May last year.
Planar'ws home theater business declined 25 percent from first quarterd tosecond quarter. Planar's control room and signagr business, created out of the 2006 acquisitiojn of Wilsonvillecompany , had a 33 percenyt revenue drop from first to second quarter.