Exar swings to fiscal 4th-quarter loss on charge

The stock retreated $1.10, or 12.2 percent, to $7.91 in afternoon trading. Shares have traded in a 52-week range of $6.50 to $15.24.

For the quarter ended March 30, Exar swung to a loss of $172.4 million, or $3.77 per share, from a profit of $1.3 million, or 3 cents per share, in the same quarter a year earlier. Results in the latest quarter include an impairment charge of $165.2 million related to the company's August purchase of Sipex Corp., an electronics components maker.

Excluding special items, the company recorded an adjusted loss of $1.7 million, or 4 cents per share.

Analysts, who typically exclude one-time items from their estimates, predicted a loss of a penny per share.

Sales rose nearly 51 percent to $18.4 million from $12.2 million.

For the full fiscal year, Exar recorded a loss of $195.9 million, or $4.55 per share, compared with a profit of $8 million, or 22 cents per share, a year earlier.

Sales rose to $67.9 million from $54.6 million.

For the first quarter, Exar forecast sales between $29 million and $31.5 million. Analysts expect $33.2 million in revenue.

Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Rick Schafer, who rates the stock "Underperform," is looking for more concrete signs of improvement and said the company's revenue outlook was "light."