FLIR Systems Earnings: Here’s Why Investors are Bidding Up Shares Now

FLIR Systems (NASDAQ:FLIR) delivered a profit and beat Wall Street’s expectations, BUT came up short on beating the revenue expectation. Shares are up 8.07%.

FLIR Systems Earnings Cheat Sheet

Results: Net income increased 1.54% to $77.3 million (52 cents per diluted share) in the quarter versus a net gain of $76.13 million in the year-earlier quarter.

Revenue: Decreased 4.64% to $386.4 million from the year-earlier quarter.

Actual vs. Wall St. Expectations: FLIR Systems reported adjusted net income of 52 cents per share. By that measure, the company beat the mean analyst estimate of $0.49. It missed the average revenue estimate of $396.19 million.

Quoting Management: “The fourth quarter was an encouraging end to a 2012 that was focused on rationalizing our businesses to enhance operating leverage and prepare us well for 2013,” said Earl Lewis, President and CEO of FLIR. “We saw higher bookings in the fourth quarter versus the prior year, helping us end 2012 with over $60 million more in order backlog than 2011. We also reached record operating cash flow for the year, which allowed us to acquire two very strategically significant businesses and return a significant amount of capital to our shareholders through repurchasing 10.5 million of our shares and distributing $42 million in dividends.”

Key Stats (on next page)…