Woodward Governor Company's Net Income Up 21 percent for 2008

Woodward Governor Company (Fort Collins, CO), a global manufacturer of optimization solutions and components of aircraft, industrial engines and turbines, released the company's fourth-quarter and fiscal-year earnings for 2008. While much of the industrial manufacturing industry has seen hard times this year, Woodward set an annual sales record of $1.26 billion, up 21 percent from $1.04 billion in the 2007 fiscal year, according to a report from Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, TX). Net earnings for the year were $121.9 million, up 24 percent from 2007's $98.2 million.

The company manufactures equipment for three business sectors–Aerospace, which accounts for 33 percent of sales; Power Generation and Processing, which accounts for 49 percent of sales, and Transportation, which accounts for 18 percent of sales. Woodward manufactures original manufacturer equipment for such well-known companies as Caterpillar (Peoria, IL), Boeing (Chicago, IL), Siemens (Munich, Germany) and Rolls Royce (London).

Woodward's manufacturing segments performed as follows for the 2008 fiscal year:

In a conference call regarding the earnings, Thomas Gandron, Woodward's President and CEO, reported that Woodward has had no cancellations in the company's order book. Gandron cautioned that many of the projects were dependent upon private-sector financing, the lack of which could affect the orders. Much of the company's manufacturing comes from the U.S. Government and the defense industry. Woodward expects orders from this segment to remain relatively the same through 2009. The company expects to increase revenues 11 percent-19 percent in 2009.

www.woodward.com