Revenue during the quarter went up marginally by 2.35 percent to $377 million from $368.34 million in the previous year period. Gross margin for the quarter expanded 51 basis points over the previous year period to 38.95 percent. Total expenses were 89.48 percent of quarterly revenues, down from 91.11 percent for the same period last year. This has led to an improvement of 163 basis points in operating margin to 10.52 percent.

Operating income for the quarter was $39.67 million, compared with $32.76 million in the previous year period.

However, the adjusted EBITDA for the quarter stood at $69.52 million compared with $61.68 million in the prior year period. At the same time, adjusted EBITDA margin improved 170 basis points in the quarter to 18.44 percent from 16.75 percent in the last year period.

In discussing the Company’s results for the quarter, Joseph C. Bartolacci, president and chief executive officer, stated "We finished the 2016 fiscal year strongly. Despite significant market headwinds, particularly in our brand and industrial technologies markets, the Company generated significantly higher fourth quarter earnings compared to last year as a result of continued acquisition synergy realization, higher cemetery memorial products sales volume and effective productivity and cost reduction efforts. Mr. Bartolacci further stated: “The synergy capture on our SGK and Aurora acquisitions continues to exceed our initial projections. In addition, the implementation of our ERP platform within the SGK businesses has progressed well. These successes are a tribute to the dedication and efforts of our acquisition integration teams. We are very encouraged moving forward as the integration efforts begin to shift more toward the Aurora integration in fiscal 2017. Assuming stable market conditions, we expect fiscal 2017 to be another good year for Matthews."