Thursday, October 23, 2008

Teradyne Announces Third Quarter, 2008 Results

By Mass High Tech Staff

Electronics testing equipment maker Teradyne Inc. reported a loss of $22.7 million for the third quarter of 2008, a significant drop from its Q3 2007 profit of $61 million. According to Mike Bradley, president and CEO of the North Reading-based technology titan, the economic instability is to blame for a drop in sales, and he doesn’t expect that to turn around quickly.

Because of that expectation, the company has updated its guidance for the fourth quarter of 2008 to projected sales between $190 million and $220 million, with a loss per share between seven cents and 18 cents on a non-GAAP basis. Those numbers don’t include the impact of the pending acquisition of Eagle Test Systems, officials said.

In September, Teradyne agreed to pay $250 million for the acquisition of publicly traded Eagle Test Systems Inc., a maker of analog, mixed-signal and radio frequency semiconductor test equipment based in Illinois. That sale is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year, which would be Teradyne’s second major buy this year, after it closed the $325 million acquisition of San Jose-based Nextest Systems Corp. in January.

Teradyne was founded in Boston in 1960 by MIT graduates Alex d’Arbeloff and Nick DeWolf. The company specializes in automatic test equipment used to test electronics for the consumer electronics, computing, telecommunications and defense industries. For 2007, Teradyne reported revenue of $1.1 billion. The company employs 3,600 workers worldwide.