Swisher Hygiene Reports 86% Jump in First Quarter Revenue

Date: May 16, 2011

Source: Swisher Hygiene Inc.

Swisher Hygiene Q1 revenue up South Florida Business Journal Date: Monday, May 16, 2011, 5:10pm EDT Swisher Hygiene saw first quarter revenue jump 86 percent, year-over-year, and 55 percent from the fourth quarter. Revenue hit $27.4 million, up from $14.7 million in the year-ago quarter, and the company lost $3.2 million, up from $1.6 million. Excluding acquisition and merger-related costs of $1.3 million, Swisher (NASDAQ: SWSH) lost $1.9 million in the first quarter. Charlotte, N.C.-based Swisher currently has a lot of costs associated with its rapid growth, which makes parsing its financials a bit of a challenge. For example, excluding the impact of acquisitions shows that organic revenue was up 15 percent. Acquisitions is what Swisher is all about right now, since Chairman H. Wayne Huizenga and CEO Steve Berrard would like to replicate the success they had at AutoNation (NYSE: AN) and Blockbuster. Since August, Swisher has acquired eight franchisee and 15 independent hygiene and chemical companies. That helped fuel an 89 percent increase in products revenue and a 139 percent increase in service revenue for Swisher, which held its annual meeting in Fort Lauderdale on May 5. Berrard seemed to caution investors against reading too much into the results. "This is just the beginning of the increase in revenue that we anticipate reporting over the next few quarters and we believe the second half of the year should more accurately reflect how well our strategy is working in terms of revenue growth, margin expansion and leveraged operating costs," he said in the earnings release. Swisher shares closed up 17 cents, or 2.82 percent, to $6.19 on Monday. The company hit a 52-week high of $11.43 on April 19, but then fell to a recent low of $5.37 on May 12 amid some scrutiny from The Wall Street Journal and TheStreetSweeper.com website, whose followers shorted the stock for a while.

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