Local Firms Post Wide Range of Earnings Reports

Earnings reports from a diverse group of Ventura County companies reflect performances ranging from impressive to disappointing.

Improvements were turned in by BioSource International Inc., Vitesse Semiconductor Corp., LTC Properties Inc. and Amgen Inc. But Xircom Inc. in Thousand Oaks experienced a downturn.

* BioSource, a Camarillo supplier of test kits used in biomedical research, reported a net income of $373,000, or 7 cents a share, on record revenues of $2 million in the three months ended Sept. 30. This compared with a loss of $95,000, or 2 cents a share, on sales of $1.6 million a year earlier.

In the nine months ended Sept. 30, BioSource netted $730,000, or 14 cents a share, on sales of $5.7 million. In the same period last year, the company lost $92,000, or 2 cents a share, on revenues of $4.9 million.

* Vitesse, a producer of digital gallium arsenide integrated circuits--an alternative to silicon computer chips--reported record net income and sales in the quarter and fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

In the quarter, the Camarillo company had net income of $1.2 million, or 7 cents a share, on revenues of $12.1 million. This compared with net income of $174,000, or 1 cent a share, on revenues of $9.7 million a year earlier.

For the fiscal year, Vitesse netted $1.5 million, or 9 cents a share, on sales of $42.9 million. This compared with a loss of $4.1 million, or 28 cents a share, on revenues of $35.6 million the previous year.

Lou Tomasetta, Vitesse’s president and chief executive, said bookings remain strong, particularly in communications, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of strong growth in backlogged orders.

* LTC Properties Inc., an Oxnard-based real-estate investment trust, reported net income of $5 million, or 27 cents a share, on revenues of $9.2 million in the three months ended Sept. 30. This compared with a profit of $4.6 million, or 26 cents a share, on revenues of $7.8 million in the year-ago period.

* Thousand Oaks’ Amgen Inc. reported net income of $145.8 million, or 52 cents a share, on revenues of $493 million in the three months ended Sept. 30. This compared with $114 million, or 41 cents a share, on sales of $426 million a year ago.

But sales of Neupogen, Amgen’s product to help people with serious diseases fight off infection, failed to meet some analysts’ expectations, and the company reported mixed test results on the drug as a treatment for pneumonia.

* Xircom Inc., a producer of computer equipment, posted a loss of $17.1 million, or 91 cents a share, on sales of $30 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30. This compared with net income of $4.3 million, or 26 cents a share, on sales of $38.9 million a year ago.

Without a charge for write-offs related to excess facilities, the loss from operations in the latest quarter was $14.5 million, or 77 cents a share.

In the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, Xircom lost $58.8 million, or $3.44 a share, on revenues of $126.6 million. This compared with net income of $15.9 million, or 95 cents a share, on sales of $131.6 million the previous year.

Without a $43.9-million charge in its latest fiscal year for an acquisition and write-offs, Xircom’s loss from operations was $14.9 million, or 87 cents a share.