Nortek hopes for cost savings from more cross-selling opportunities...

Nortek hopes for cost savings from more cross-selling opportunities across its product lines, CEO Michael Clarke said on an earnings call Wednesday. To date, the company has sold products “through the same channels and we don’t really benefit from those cross-selling opportunities,” Clarke said. The company is studying where wholesale and retail channels can achieve savings, he said. “Before, there wasn’t a lot of synergy between the businesses,” which, he said, “are not running independently now.” Nortek is looking at “linking home automation to intercom systems,” Clarke said, mentioning Nortek’s longstanding NuTone intercom brand. A product arising from the two segments would likely come to market “pretty soon,” he said, but said bringing new products to market takes longer than standard cost-reduction projects. Nortek is also looking to align with trends in the residential technology market by combining security and Web-based home automation, Clarke said. An early example of those efforts is a recently launched Z-Wave-based garage door opener that integrates with a home security and home automation system. The product is launching as part of Lowe’s Iris connected home products line, he said. Nortek has also been consolidating operations to achieve better economies of scale, Clarke said, and over the past two years it has cut the number of operations in the tech sector by six, he said. New construction in the U.S. is “expected to remain strong,” but it’s a small part of Nortek’s business which is driven by the retrofit market, Clarke said. The remodel market is expected to grow in 2014 but at a slower pace than new home construction, he said. Security and home automation are two-thirds of Nortek’s tech business, leaving the company “well-positioned” to take advantage of an expanding home security business, he said. For the quarter ended Dec. 31, sales were $548.9 million, vs. $505.4 million in the year-ago quarter, the company said. Net loss narrowed to $8.9 million from $12.5 million in the 2012 quarter, it said. Gross profit margin was 28.2 percent compared with 30.1 percent in the 2012 quarter. For all of 2013, Nortek reported a loss of $8.3 million, vs. a profit of $9.5 million a year earlier, it said.