GREEN BAY, Wis., May 8 -- Tufco Technologies, Inc., a leader in providing diversified contract wet and dry wipes converting and printing, as well as specialty printing services and business imaging products, today announced that fiscal year 2006 second quarter sales were $23,089,000, up 8.8% over fiscal year 2005 second quarter sales. For the six months, sales were $44,402,000, up 7.7% from the comparable period of 2005. Net income per diluted share for the 2006 second quarter was $0.04 per share compared to $0.03 net income per diluted share for the second quarter of 2005. For the first six months of 2006, net income per diluted share was $0.05 per share compared to $0.12 per share (of which $0.05 per share of the $0.12 was attributable to a gain from an asset sale). Impacting the current year (fiscal 2006) first-half results were costs to build, install, train and start-up new equipment for recently announced and new multi-year contracts. In commenting on the results, Louis LeCalsey, Tufco's President and CEO said, "We have spent a great amount of effort over the last eighteen months in successful business building. In Contract Manufacturing, customers do not change overnight as there are contract considerations, six to twelve month equipment lead times, switch out costs, etc. That business building effort has paid off. As we previously stated, we now have substantial new contracts in place and we started commercial operations late in the second quarter for some products and expect all products commercialized by mid-May. Based on these new contracts in hand, and our customers' forecasts for their products, once we enter the commercial phase of these new commitments, we would expect accelerated gross profit and higher earnings. Our Newton facility is on track also, showing strong positive year over year sales gains. However, given the variability of factors outside our control, such as consumer-level demand for our customers' products, the Company specifically declines to provide future earnings guidance." "While we have maintained tight controls on all expense levels during this business building activity to protect our bottom line, the extra cost of sales year to year is unavoidable as scrap, training and other start-up activities partially consumed the benefits of higher sales. Although our results for the first six months obviously were not robust, we are excited about the future. Our business building will continue and we look forward to announcing more commitments for additional production upon recently acquired manufacturing assets," he concluded.