Cyanotech quarter profits up from '03

By Sean Hao
Advertiser Staff Writer

Kona-based Cyanotech Corp. yesterday reported higher sales and earnings in the latest quarter compared with a year earlier.

During the three months ended June 30, the maker of dietary supplements for humans and animals recorded a profit of $113,000, or a penny a share, versus a loss of $141,000, or a penny a share, in the year-ago quarter. Year-to-year sales increased 11 percent to $2.71 million.

However, sales and earnings were down from the previous quarter ended March 30 because inclement weather led to unfilled orders for spirulina — an aquaculture feed additive, Cyanotech said. Excluding unfulfilled spirulina shipments, the company's order backlog increased 50 percent from the beginning of the quarter, said Gerald Cysewski, Cyanotech's chairman, president and chief executive.

"While we are disappointed with the quarter's results that mark a departure from our recent trend of sequential quarterly increases in revenue and net income, we are encouraged with the progress we have made from a year ago," he said. "Compared to the first quarter of the prior fiscal year, we have increased revenues, maintained control of our expenses and recorded net income."

Cyanotech was one of the state's earliest high-tech hopes when it launched in Kailua in the mid-1980s. However, it has since struggled to achieve consistent profits.

Shares of Cyanotech closed up a penny at $1.75 on the Nasdaq SmallCap Market in advance of the results, which were released after the markets closed.

Reach Sean Hao at shao@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8093.