SCHAUMBURG, IL -- Sparton today said fiscal third quarter sales at its Manufacturing and Design Services unit rose 3.6% to $62.2 million.

Gross profit was up 13% to $8.1 million for the period ended Mar. 31. Operating income fell 40% to $2.1 million.

The company reported overall sales of $93.1 million, up 11% from last year. Operating income was $4.9 million, down from $6.4 million. Net income slipped 2.4% to $4.1 million. About $7.7 million of the sales for the period came from acquisitions.

During the quarter Sparton acquired fellow EMS company Hunter Technology and also purchased the assets of Stealth.com, a supplier of ruggedized industrial grade computer systems and peripherals

In a press release, CEO and president Cary Wood said, “The 2% increase in our base business revenue in the third quarter reflects additional domestic sonobuoy sales and the return of certain programs that had been delayed in previous quarters, which were offset by continued customer demand, program delays, and product end of life events within the MDS business. Although organic growth is slightly lower than the 3-5% target range we’ve previously communicated as the goal, it is an improvement over the previous two quarters. The addition of Hunter Technology subsequent to the close of the quarter further expands Sparton regionally into Northern California, diversifies our customer base through both existing programs and a strong business development pipeline, increases our engineering service capabilities and new product introduction (NPI) offerings, and continues to grow the number of complex subassembly and full device programs while allowing us to offer an expanded list of services such as our low cost country footprint in Vietnam and a full complement of engineering design capabilities.

"The organic growth realized in the third quarter was primarily due to the strength of our sonobuoy and rugged electronics business positively offsetting issues within the MDS segment. The softening we experienced in the first half of the year with our MDS base business continued to a lesser extent in the third quarter as we experienced fluctuations in customer demand and program delays, coupled with the one-year anniversary of the fiscal 2014 Fenwal rebalancing decision occurring within the quarter. The Company's organic sales pipeline continues to be robust and we remain well positioned to deliver positive year over year base business results for fiscal 2016 as we begin to capitalize on synergistic selling opportunities presented by our recent acquisitions. We anticipate finishing the year strong in our base business and the addition of the most recent acquisitions coupled with the full year impact of the other acquisitions made this year, will put us close to reaching the stated aspiration of a $500 million revenue run-rate milestone."