James Porter
Analyst · Sidoti
Thanks, Joe. Our second quarter performance came in at the high-end of our internal expectations in continued weak market. We earned $0.17 per share from continuing operations compared to a loss of $0.06 per share last year, exceeding our prior year performance as we indicated we expect to do each quarter this year. The prior-year period included $0.05 per share of CEO transition costs. We also had $0.01 per share noncash earnings in discontinued operations in the quarter for net earnings of $0.18 per share. Apogee's gross margin improved almost 500 basis points to 20.5%, up from 15.7% in the second quarter of last year. This is up about 30 basis points from last quarter, with improved capacity utilization, somewhat offset by higher healthcare and insurance cost experienced this quarter.
Our architectural segment had operating income of $3 million compared to an operating loss of $5.1 million in the prior-year period. Segment revenues grew 5%, largely as a result of share gains in the installation and storefront businesses, which are also expanding into new domestic geographies. Second quarter architectural segment capacity utilization was approximately 63%, up from 52% in the first quarter and up slightly from 61% in the prior-year period. As our capacity utilization increases with architectural segment growth, we're better leveraging our fixed assets, and have the opportunity to expand our margin.
Our architectural backlog increased more than $70 million year-on-year and more than $30 million from the first quarter to reach $299 million, our highest backlog level in 3 years. I'll remind you that our backlog can be lumpy based on the timing of project awards quarter-to-quarter. That said, we do feel good about the growth trend in our backlog.
Our backlog mix at the end of the second quarter is consistent with the first quarter. The institutional sector remained at approximately 60% of our backlog, with health care projects a much larger portion of this than education and government work. Office sector is approximately 25% of the backlog. Multi-family residential, including high-end condos and apartments is approximately 10%, and hotel, entertainment, transportation and retail are less than 5% of the backlog.
During the timing of the backlog, as noted in the release, we had approximately $166 million or 56% of our backlog is expected to be delivered in fiscal 2013, and approximately $133 million or 44% in fiscal 2014. We feel good that we currently have a strong level of backlog scheduled for the second half of fiscal 2013 and we're beginning to have some nice visibility into the next fiscal year.
Our Large-Scale Optical segment continued to make significant contributions to Apogee's performance, particularly in the second quarter with growth in both revenues and earnings. As a result of increased volume and a better mix of higher value-added glass and acrylic products in all Picture Framing sectors, revenues were up 19%, and operating income increased 48% to $5.2 million. Operating margin was 26.5% compared to 21.4% in the prior-year period. Last year's second quarter we saw Large-Scale Optical segment's softness in fiscal 2012 due to weak retail market and timing of customer promotions.
Cash and short-term investments at the end of the second quarter totaled $68.3 million compared to $57.5 million at the end of the first quarter and $79.3 million at the end of fiscal 2012. We had positive free cash flow of $12 million during the second quarter compared to $3.9 million in the prior-year period.
We used cash last quarter for normal first quarter working capital need, and we had indicated that we expected positive free cash flow over the balance of the fiscal year. We define free cash flow as net cash flow provided by operating activities, minus capital expenditure.
Our noncash working capital was $57.4 million compared to $44.4 million at the end of fiscal 2012 and $68.2 million in the prior-year period. Our team continues to do a great job managing working capital with our days working capital improved to 41 days compared to 48 days in the prior-year period.
We define noncash working capital as current assets, excluding cash and short-term investment plus current liabilities. While days working capital is computed looking at our controllable working capital assets and liabilities, accounts receivable, inventory and accounts payable. I'll turn to our outlook.
As Joe noted, with our strong second quarter earnings and backlog growth, and the visibility our backlog provides, we're increasing our full year earnings guidance range to $0.56 to $0.64 per share from the prior guidance of $0.48 to $0.58 per share. Despite the outlook from McGraw-Hill for our specific end markets to be slightly down in fiscal 2013, we are maintaining our expectation for mid-single-digit revenue growth as our architectural businesses continue to gain share, including domestic geographic growth at our installation and storefront businesses. We continue to expect full year gross margin of approximately 21%. We believe that our strong second quarter operational performance will continue, as productivity improvements deliver the expected results.
As such, we anticipate that the third and fourth quarters will show growth and margin improvement over the prior year, although we will no longer benefit from increased Architectural Glass pricing which had now been in place for a year. We do anticipate that favorable project margins will begin to flow through in the second half, as we've continue to work off lower margin projects bid in the construction cycle trough.
We anticipate our normal tax rate of approximately 35% over the balance of the year, rather than the tax benefits totaling roughly $0.08 per share that we recognize during the second half of fiscal 2012.
We continue to expect to generate positive free cash flow for fiscal 2013 after our full year capital spending outlook of $25 million to $30 million. We increased our anticipated spending from $25 million as we pursue some additional productivity and growth projects. Depreciation and amortization for the year should be approximately $27 million.
I'm encouraged by our first half performance and expect continued improvement as fiscal 2013 progresses. I also look forward to future opportunities that will leverage Apogee's strong financial position, leading products and services and operational and strategic initiatives. Joe?