Sales and Profits Up for Kronos in Fiscal Second Quarter

May 16, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Companies may not be hiring as much as we would like, but they do appear to be spending more money on keeping track of their employees.

Kronos, a provider of workforce management products that grew through acquisitions early in the last decade and that was taken private through a $1.8 billion acquisition by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners (H&F), in early 2007, doesn’t have to report its financial results. But to keep its name out there–and perhaps to lure potential suitors or to prepare for an initial public offering some day–the company has released some financial information from time to time.

I said some financial information–it ain’t a lot. Kronos said that in the second quarter that its revenues were $197.4 million and its earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization were $51.7 million. That’s 11 percent revenue growth and 25.2 percent growth on EBITA earnings. This time last year, revenues were growing 10 percent, to $177.9 million, and EBITA earnings were up 28 percent, to $41.3 million.

The last time we saw audited financials for Kronos was back in its first quarter of fiscal 2007 ending in December 2006, and at that time Kronos posted sales of $148.7 million, and earnings (not EBITDA but real net earnings) fell by 8.1 percent to $5.7 million.

“We’re very pleased with our solid second-quarter performance–our best second quarter ever in terms of total revenue, which was well balanced across all of our key verticals and global geographies,” explained Aron Ain, chief executive officer at Kronos, in a statement accompanying the figures. “Our double-digit growth in product revenue is one of the most meaningful metrics for analyzing our underlying growth. As we enter the second half of our fiscal year, our momentum is accelerating as organizations around the world increasingly seek ways to control labor costs, minimize compliance risk, and improve workforce productivity.”

Kronos still does a tidy business selling its iSeries Central suite of workforce management tools. It is not clear what share of its revenues come from these products, but it is a fair guess that it is a small but important portion roughly proportional to the relative sizes of the Windows and OS/400 server installed bases.