Lawson Products, Inc. (NASDAQ:LAWS), Des Plaines, IL, a distributor of products and services to MRO and OEM markets and No. 21 on MDM's list of the top 40 industrial distributors, reported sales in the second quarter were up 6.9 percent to $101.6 million from the prior-year period. Profit was $1.7 million, compared with $1.8 million in profit in the prior-year period.
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Sales growth was due primarily to a "modest improvement in the economy and continued growth with strategic, governmental and automotive customers," according to Lawson. Gross profit margin was 57.7 percent in the quarter, down slightly from 2009, due to a change in customer mix to higher volume customers and an increase in proportion of sales from the lower-margin OEM segment.
Sales for the six months ended June 30, 2010, were $196.7 million, a 1.2 percent improvement from the first half of 2009. Profit for the first half was $4 million, compared with a loss of $4.1 million last year.
