Airgas, Inc. (NYSE: ARG), Radnor, PA, No. 5 on MDM’s list of the Top 40 industrial distributors, U.S. distributor of industrial, medical, and specialty gases, and related supplies, reported sales in its fiscal first quarter 2013 ended June 30, 2012, were $1.26 billion, an increase of 8 percent from the prior year.

Same-store sales were up 7 percent. Hardgoods were up 9 percent and gas and rent were up 5 percent. Acquisitions, net of a divestiture, contributed sales growth of 1 percent in the quarter.

Profit for the quarter was $90.7 million.

"Our earnings were strong, notwithstanding the significant incremental challenges we faced in our helium supply chain during the quarter," said Airgas CEO Peter McCausland. "The slow and steady growth we had been seeing across our customer base through May moderated in June. We are paying close attention to our business trends and tightening controls on our operating expenses. Though we are appropriately cautious about near-term conditions, we remain optimistic about the long-term prospects for the U.S. manufacturing and energy industries and our ability to leverage our unique value proposition and unrivaled platform to drive growth in these and other key customer segments."

Airgas also provided an update on its SAP implementation. COO Michael Molinini said that SAP implementation costs were higher than anticipated during the quarter and are expected to be so for the remainder of the year. Over the past five months, Airgas has converted four regional companies and trained more than 2,000 users. The implementation is on-schedule, with nearly 70 percent of the business running on SAP.