Latest news with #Albany
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Albany's (NYSE:AIN) Q2 Sales Beat Estimates
Industrial equipment and engineered products manufacturer Albany (NYSE:AIN) announced better-than-expected revenue in Q2 CY2025, but sales fell by 6.2% year on year to $311.4 million. The company expects the full year's revenue to be around $1.22 billion, close to analysts' estimates. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.57 per share was 22.4% below analysts' consensus estimates. Is now the time to buy Albany? Find out in our full research report. Albany (AIN) Q2 CY2025 Highlights: Revenue: $311.4 million vs analyst estimates of $303.6 million (6.2% year-on-year decline, 2.6% beat) Adjusted EPS: $0.57 vs analyst expectations of $0.73 (22.4% miss) Adjusted EBITDA: $51.88 million vs analyst estimates of $60 million (16.7% margin, 13.5% miss) The company reconfirmed its revenue guidance for the full year of $1.22 billion at the midpoint Management reiterated its full-year Adjusted EPS guidance of $3.20 at the midpoint EBITDA guidance for the full year is $250 million at the midpoint, above analyst estimates of $247.8 million Operating Margin: 7.2%, down from 12.9% in the same quarter last year Free Cash Flow Margin: 6%, down from 19.2% in the same quarter last year Market Capitalization: $2.16 billion "Overall, I am encouraged with our progress this year. Our business segment leaders are performing well as they restructure, invest and strengthen their operations. Our second quarter financial results lagged our expectations, but the performance was largely impacted by certain timing and operational issues and we are confident in our recovery," said President and CEO, Gunnar Kleveland. Company Overview Founded in 1895, Albany (NYSE:AIN) is a global textiles and materials processing company, specializing in machine clothing for paper mills and engineered composite structures for aerospace and other industries. Revenue Growth Examining a company's long-term performance can provide clues about its quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but the best consistently grow over the long haul. Regrettably, Albany's sales grew at a sluggish 3.7% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This was below our standard for the industrials sector and is a rough starting point for our analysis. Long-term growth is the most important, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss new industry trends or demand cycles. Albany's annualized revenue growth of 5.1% over the last two years is above its five-year trend, but we were still disappointed by the results. We can dig further into the company's revenue dynamics by analyzing its most important segments, Machine Clothing and Engineered Composites, which are 58.1% and 41.9% of revenue. Over the last two years, Albany's Machine Clothing revenue (paper manufacturing belts) averaged 9.3% year-on-year growth while its Engineered Composites revenue (aerospace components) averaged 1% growth. This quarter, Albany's revenue fell by 6.2% year on year to $311.4 million but beat Wall Street's estimates by 2.6%. Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 4% over the next 12 months, similar to its two-year rate. This projection doesn't excite us and suggests its products and services will see some demand headwinds. Today's young investors likely haven't read the timeless lessons in Gorilla Game: Picking Winners In High Technology because it was written more than 20 years ago when Microsoft and Apple were first establishing their supremacy. But if we apply the same principles, then enterprise software stocks leveraging their own generative AI capabilities may well be the Gorillas of the future. So, in that spirit, we are excited to present our Special Free Report on a profitable, fast-growing enterprise software stock that is already riding the automation wave and looking to catch the generative AI next. Operating Margin Operating margin is a key measure of profitability. Think of it as net income - the bottom line - excluding the impact of taxes and interest on debt, which are less connected to business fundamentals. Albany has been an efficient company over the last five years. It was one of the more profitable businesses in the industrials sector, boasting an average operating margin of 14.5%. This result isn't surprising as its high gross margin gives it a favorable starting point. Looking at the trend in its profitability, Albany's operating margin decreased by 10 percentage points over the last five years. This raises questions about the company's expense base because its revenue growth should have given it leverage on its fixed costs, resulting in better economies of scale and profitability. This quarter, Albany generated an operating margin profit margin of 7.2%, down 5.8 percentage points year on year. Since Albany's operating margin decreased more than its gross margin, we can assume it was less efficient because expenses such as marketing, R&D, and administrative overhead increased. Earnings Per Share We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) for the same reason as long-term revenue growth. Compared to revenue, however, EPS highlights whether a company's growth is profitable. Sadly for Albany, its EPS declined by 7.7% annually over the last five years while its revenue grew by 3.7%. This tells us the company became less profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded due to non-fundamental factors such as interest expenses and taxes. Diving into the nuances of Albany's earnings can give us a better understanding of its performance. As we mentioned earlier, Albany's operating margin declined by 10 percentage points over the last five years. This was the most relevant factor (aside from the revenue impact) behind its lower earnings; interest expenses and taxes can also affect EPS but don't tell us as much about a company's fundamentals. Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a more recent period because it can provide insight into an emerging theme or development for the business. For Albany, its two-year annual EPS declines of 15% show it's continued to underperform. These results were bad no matter how you slice the data. In Q2, Albany reported adjusted EPS at $0.57, down from $0.89 in the same quarter last year. This print missed analysts' estimates. We also like to analyze expected EPS growth based on Wall Street analysts' consensus projections, but there is insufficient data. Key Takeaways from Albany's Q2 Results We enjoyed seeing Albany beat analysts' revenue expectations this quarter. We were also glad its full-year EBITDA guidance slightly exceeded Wall Street's estimates. On the other hand, its EBITDA missed and its EPS fell short of Wall Street's estimates. Overall, this quarter could have been better. The stock traded down 3.1% to $68.83 immediately after reporting. Albany may have had a tough quarter, but does that actually create an opportunity to invest right now? What happened in the latest quarter matters, but not as much as longer-term business quality and valuation, when deciding whether to invest in this stock. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it's free. Erreur lors de la récupération des données Connectez-vous pour accéder à votre portefeuille Erreur lors de la récupération des données Erreur lors de la récupération des données Erreur lors de la récupération des données Erreur lors de la récupération des données
Times
10 hours ago
- Science
- Times
Ivar Giaever obituary: modest Nobel-winning physicist
As a Nobel prizewinner, Ivar Giaever was surely within his rights to call his autobiography I am the Smartest Man I Know. But the title was firmly tongue-in-cheek, he insisted, despite his achievements. For a start, he asserted, he was far from the brightest spark at the vast General Electric (GE) research and development facility in New York where he tinkered with superconductors. 'There were several hundred scientists at the laboratory all with a better education than I had had and maybe half of them were smarter than me,' he wrote. He believed that a Nobel could indicate good fortune rather than exceptional intellect. 'Some winners are smart,' he once told a reporter, 'some are average and a few are actually dumb.' It was true that higher education was a low point for Giaever. While studying mechanical engineering at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim his main focus was playing bridge, chess and billiards. Though the university champion in the latter, he did not win trophies for his academic performance. Giaever asked his physics professor about his examination results and was told: 'Your answers are among the worst that have ever been handed in!' As luck would have it, this dismal effort helped Giaever to secure a job at a renowned GE industrial laboratory near Albany, the New York state capital. Eyeing his grades, the personnel director exclaimed: 'I see you have 4.0 in both physics and mathematics, you must have been a very good student!' Giaever wisely neglected to mention that the grading system in Norway worked in the opposite direction to the US, meaning that 4.0 was the lowest pass mark rather than the top grade it signalled in American schools. Setting aside his educational record and self-deprecation, Giaever was, of course, very smart. He excelled during a corporate training programme and when he was hired in 1958 he became, according to his family, the only scientific researcher at the laboratory without a PhD. Giaever began experimenting with superconductors — materials that can conduct electricity without energy loss — and in 1960 performed a breakthrough quantum mechanics experiment on a phenomenon known as the tunnel effect. In the late Fifties a Japanese physicist working for the Sony Corporation, Leo Esaki, had demonstrated electron tunnelling in semiconductors. He showed that the particles had wave-like properties that, in the right conditions, allowed them to 'tunnel' through ordinarily impenetrable barriers. Using metal strips separated by a thin oxide layer, Giaever proved this also occurred in superconductors. Such insights were valuable to theoretical physicists and to makers of modern electronic equipment that uses diodes, transistors and lasers. Giaever's experiment supported what is known as the BCS theory. The authors of that 1957 theory on superconductor behaviour were awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 1972; Giaever secured the honour a year later, aged 44, crediting his success to advice from colleagues as he shared the prize with Esaki and Brian Josephson, a Welsh theoretical physicist whose work while a graduate student at Cambridge University built on Giaever's achievements. Ivar Giaever was born in Bergen in 1929 to John, a pharmacist, and Gudrun (née Skaarud), who helped in the pharmacy and took care of the family. Neither went to high school. He grew up on a farm, which proved useful during wartime food shortages, and enjoyed skiing and taking machinery apart to see how it worked. Schools closed each autumn so that children could spend three weeks in the fields harvesting potatoes. Aged 14 he met a local girl, Inger Skramstad, who became an au pair in England and a ski instructor and community volunteer in the United States; they married in 1952. Before entering the Institute of Technology Giaever had a year of work experience at an ammunition factory, experimenting during his lunch hour to automate the lathe he operated. It was dangerous work; several colleagues were missing thumbs and he narrowly escaped serious injury when he used a steel milling machine incorrectly and a tool snapped and recoiled forcefully, grazing his chin. After his degree and compulsory military service he took a job with the patent office in Oslo, assessing applications related to locks, hinges and knitting machines. Money was tight: on one occasion, Ivar and Inger accepted a dinner invitation but could not afford a babysitter, so he tied their infant son, John, to the bed and went out. With a baby and a housing crisis so severe there was an eight-year waiting list for an apartment, they decided to follow the example of a friend who had emigrated to the US and, Ivar recalled, bought 'a car as large as a tank'. With only $200 in their pockets the family moved to Toronto, where one of Inger's sisters lived, but at first life in Canada was no easier. Giaever used a knife to slit the front of his ill-fitting shoes to ease the rubbing pain as he trudged the city's streets looking for a job in the dead of winter. He tried the GE headquarters in Toronto. Directed by a secretary to walk down several corridors to the employment office, he took a wrong turn and found himself out on the street. Disheartened and wondering if he had been tricked, he was on the brink of leaving but went back and was guided to the correct entrance. Giaever was hired as an engineer, testing electrical equipment and improving his mathematics skills on a company training scheme. To enhance his salary and career prospects he emigrated to the US, continuing his training with GE and enrolling at the nearby Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) for a master's degree in physics before finishing a doctorate there in 1964, the year he became an American citizen. He was invited to a meeting of scientists in Moscow, which led to him being interviewed by the FBI, and to a conference in Brighton, where the main inconvenience was the stones on the beach. Bringing their hulking Chevrolet station wagon across the Pond in 1968, the family spent a sabbatical year in England. Giaever studied biophysics on a Guggenheim fellowship at Clare Hall, Cambridge, and observed that even a meeting about his overdraft with his bank manager started with a glass of sherry. Formalities were not the only culture shock. 'Americans take great pride in working hard while the English are more concerned with appearing very smart,' he wrote. 'In Cambridge people did not seem to care about what was correct or not; the point was to win the argument.' Applying the techniques and principles of physics to biology was a growing passion and on his return to the US he began experiments with the goal of detecting hepatitis antibodies. Though his GE bosses had scant interest in biology the prestige of his Nobel victory gave him free rein to pursue whatever interested him. When news of the triumph emerged the company sent a limousine to whisk him to work and rolled out a red carpet at the laboratory entrance. Giaever worked in the laboratory of the celebrated polio vaccine developer Jonas Salk at the Salk Institute in San Diego. He left GE in 1988 for a professorship at the RPI, had a spell as a professor at the University of Oslo and co-founded a biophysics company centred on cell research and drug discoveries. Careful with money given his earlier struggles, he habitually lunched on cups of spicy noodles bought from Walmart for 28 cents apiece. Leisure time was spent playing board games, windsurfing and skiing into his mid-eighties. Inger died in 2023; he is survived by their son, John, a retired engineer, and three daughters, Anne, a teacher, Guri, an associate professor in pharmaceutical sciences, and Trine, an artist. Giaever and his wife lived in the same house for 60 years but travelled the world. Aged 80, he took a teaching position in Seoul and made the national news on a trip to South Korea when he told a journalist that the nation lacked Nobel laureates because fervent debates can inspire progress and Koreans are too polite to argue with authority figures. Unafraid to speak his mind, Giaever possessed an irreverent wit honed from dedicated viewing of the sitcom, Seinfeld. He was a sought-after speaker and frequent guest expert on an American public radio science programme. A natural sceptic — aged six he declared the Easter bunny to be a fiction, a stance that cost him sweets — he was a prominent self-described climate change denier and resigned from the American Physical Society in 2011 because it described the evidence for global warming as 'incontrovertible'. He wrote: 'In my view, nothing in science is incontrovertible.' Asked how it felt to win the Nobel, he liked to reply: 'I suddenly became the most famous person I knew.' Reflecting on a career that brought him several other prestigious prizes and more than 30 patents, he mused about how different it all would have been had he given up and gone home after walking the wrong way in the GE office in Toronto: a 50-50 decision that transformed his future. 'Life is not fair,' he wrote in his 2016 book, 'and I, for one, am happy about that.' Ivar Giaever, Nobel prize-winning physicist, was born on April 5, 1929. He died after a period of declining health on June 20, 2025, aged 96
ABC News
21 hours ago
- General
- ABC News
Volunteers help save a penguin population.
A group of volunteers in Albany are trying to save the penguin population by weeding where they try and nest. Supplied: Isha Barve
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘I did it': Cuomo claims credit for NYC's universal pre-K program, stoking outrage
NEW YORK — Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo claimed credit Monday for the creation of New York City's universal pre-K program, an initiative that's widely viewed as the brainchild of his longtime political nemesis, ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio. Cuomo, who's running as an independent candidate in November's election for New York City mayor, staked out his position during an appearance on WNYC after being asked if he agrees de Blasio spearheaded the 2014 launch of the popular early childhood education program. 'No, he didn't,' replied Cuomo, who as governor frequently clashed with de Blasio. 'The state did it — I did it.' The city's universal pre-K program, which provides free full-day child care for every 4-year-old in the five boroughs, got off the ground in September 2014 after de Blasio made it the main objective of his early days as mayor. Administered by the city Department of Education, the program's launch was undergirded by a hefty tranche of funding included in that year's state budget, meaning Albany played a key role in getting the initiative across the finish line. However, the program itself was proposed and designed by de Blasio's administration, and the former mayor has long said Albany, including then-Gov. Cuomo, only came around to backing a state funding increase after relentless advocacy from his City Hall team. Asked for clarity on Cuomo's radio comments, his spokesman Rich Azzopardi said the ex-governor was referring to a small-scale pre-K pilot program he launched on the state level in 2013 before de Blasio became mayor. Azzopardi also took a shot at de Blasio for initially pushing Albany for a state-level tax increase on the wealthy to bankroll the universal pre-K program. 'His point was that de Blasio wanted a tax increase for the sake of a tax increase, and Gov. Cuomo was able to build upon the pilot program he launched prior to de Blasio's election and deliver those pre-K slots not only to the city, but also the rest of the state with existing resources,' Azzopardi said. De Blasio didn't immediately return a request for comment Monday. Some de Blasio defenders stepped in to accuse Cuomo of rewriting history in light of his radio remarks. City Council Finance Committee Chairman Justin Brannan, who as a senior city Department of Education official helped with the rollout of universal pre-K in 2014, said Cuomo's comments made him feel like his 'head is going to explode.' 'And I built the Verrazzano Bridge with my bare hands,' Brannan added. 'Andrew Cuomo lives in his own reality. Facts don't matter,' Ana Maria Archila, the New York Working Families Party's co-director, piled on in a post on X. 'He makes up stories and then just expects people to fall in line.' In a press conference held this past April to celebrate a funding increase for the pre-K program, de Blasio hinted at the grueling battle his administration got into with Cuomo's administration in 2014. 'I went to Albany, and I found a door that was closed quite often and a lack of support — and we had to fight and fight and fight to finally get what our children deserved,' he said at that press conference. 'You either stand for early childhood education or you don't, and I just think everyone's record should be remembered.' The 2014 feud is reemerging at a time Cuomo faces a deja vu of sorts over policies related to taxation and childcare — albeit from a very different angle. Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor who's polling as the favorite to win November's election, has proposed vastly expanding free childcare in the city so that kids between the ages of 6 weeks and 5 years are entitled to it. In order to fund such a drastic expansion, Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has proposed increasing taxes on corporations and millionaires. Cuomo and other critics of Mamdani, including Mayor Eric Adams, who's also running as an independent in November's election, have argued Mamdani's proposals are unrealistic, saying, in particular, that there's no way Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers will agree to tax hikes next year. In his WNYC appearance, Cuomo — who raised taxes on millionaires in 2021 — reiterated his belief that Mamdani wouldn't be able to secure any tax hikes in Albany in 2026. 'That is not going to happen,' said Cuomo, who resigned as governor in August 2021 amid sexual and professional misconduct accusations he denies. ____ _____
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Elderly Aussies face eviction as caravan park crisis sparks urgent calls for reform
An advocacy group is calling on the government to urgently overhaul the rules protecting long-term residents in caravan parks and lifestyle villages, as elderly tenants — some in their 80s — face the devastating prospect of losing their homes with little notice and no compensation. The calls come amid community backlash over recent evictions at two regional tourist parks near Albany and Geraldton in Western Australia. Long-term residents say they were left vulnerable after the land was sold for redevelopment, with some given just 120 days to leave, despite living on the site for years or even decades. In WA, park home communities can include both short-term tourist accommodation and permanent residences, but not all operators provide long-term leases to their permanent tenants. That means some residents are effectively living month to month, even when their park home is their only home. Without stronger enforcement of existing laws, the Park Home Owners Association of WA said more vulnerable residents could be left exposed, especially as tourism operators look to maximise profits in high-demand locations. "It doesn't bear thinking about," chairperson Terry Hintchcliffe told Yahoo News. "Particularly when the average age of people in that situation would probably be around 80. They're not in a position where you can suddenly say, 'Alright, here's a new part of my life coming on. I've got the financial wherewithal.' "They just don't have that. So, it's a tragic situation for a lot of people." The association is now calling for fixed-term leases to be made standard, and for more active compliance by the government to ensure park operators meet their legal obligations. "What we'd like to see is the end of periodic leases, for a start," Hintchcliffe said. "Fixed-term leases need to be the way to go, so that people get the protections they need, and that operators are regularly inspected to ensure they are meeting the requirements of the legislation." Who lives in park communities? Park home residents are a diverse group — from retirees seeking a quieter lifestyle to those on lower incomes with few other housing options. "You've got a whole gamut of people, from those where it's what they can afford, through to people who have made retirement lifestyle choices," Hintchcliffe said. For nearly a decade, Kevin Logan, 83, called Drummond Cove Holiday Park home. Tucked along the coastline near Geraldton, about 400 kilometres north of Perth, the seaside cabin cost him $230,000 — an investment he believed would secure his future. The park's former owner assured him he could stay for life, so he settled in without a second thought. But that sense of certainty was shattered in February, when Logan and a dozen other long-term residents were handed eviction notices, just a year after Wajarri Enterprises took over the site. They're expected to leave by August. The recent controversy centres on parks with higher proportions of short-stay accommodation, where long-term residents may be fewer and more vulnerable. The Park Home Owners Association believes these recent cases may only be scratching the surface, estimating up to 200 residents across WA could be living without secure tenancy protections. "In this particular case, I think there are about 20 at the Albany location and five or six at the Geraldton location," Hintchcliffe said. "But what our organisation has identified is probably between 100 and 200 people, because some parks don't do the right thing and provide secure leases." Despite living in the same location for years, many residents are still on short-term or periodic leases, often due to a lack of awareness or legal support. "There are a couple of reasons, usually down to ignorance, not only on the part of the person living in the caravan park, but they haven't done due diligence and determined what their situation is," Hintchcliffe said. "They've just accepted it for years and years, and they don't want to look into it. "But in some cases, too, it's on the part of the park operator. Simply ignorance of the rules." WA's tenancy laws are strong on paper, but enforcement is a different story "What we have here in WA is very robust laws ... but we don't have a system that enforces those laws and backs things up," Hintchcliffe said. "The laws give protection to residents if they care to take things to the courts or the State Administrative Tribunal. But most of the people involved are not in that sort of position. They're often vulnerable people. They haven't got the financial backing behind them to do that, even though they would almost certainly win." While residents can seek advice, few are equipped to fight legal battles on their own, especially those in their later years, and when a park is sold for redevelopment, long-term residents can be displaced with very little recourse, especially if they don't hold a fixed-term lease. "If they're on a periodic lease, they only have to get — in theory — 120 days' notice," Hintchcliffe said. 'Which is not a lot of time to find somewhere new to live. Those with fixed-term leases are entitled to relocation support — but those without can lose everything. "If they're not on a fixed-term lease, where they're just on a periodic lease, then the 120-day rule applies," Hintchcliffe said. "And so potentially, if somebody is unable to do that, or the building is such that it really can't be moved, then yeah, that means they lose their home." Hintchcliffe says public pressure does make a difference. In Albany, community action initially delayed the council's approval of the park's sale. "There was a groundswell move to have the council's decision to allow the sale overturned," he said. "And for a month or so, that was quite successful, and it looked like the sale might fall through. But I don't know the politics of it — at some point, the council did eventually approve it as well." For the Park Home Owners Association, the core issue is not a lack of legislation — it's that the most vulnerable tenants can't access the protection they already have. "We are pushing hard on the point that the general residents in the caravan park are not capable and don't have the wherewithal to use the law on their side," Hintchcliffe said. "They need government assistance, and they need government backing to enforce laws." Do you have a story tip? 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