Even rising sales weren't enough to stop Gibraltar Industries from losing more money.

Higher raw material costs, coupled with intensifying pricing pressure from its competitors, caused the Hamburg-based building products manufacturer's operating loss to nearly triple during the fourth quarter.

Still, Gibraltar executives said Friday they believe the worst is over after a four-year slump that has led to a radical reshaping and downsizing of the company.

Gibraltar executives said Friday they were heartened by the 7 percent improvement in the company's sales. And they predicted that, with Gibraltar's cost structure significantly reduced because of the restructuring, the company could be profitable again during the first half of this year.

"We've positioned Gibraltar to generate industry-leading margins as our markets improve," said Brian J. Lipke, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, during a conference call.

"We are entering 2011 in a stronger financial position than we did in 2010," Lipke said. "We're basically at a break-even point for the business at this level of sales."

Even so, the fourth-quarter loss was worse than analysts were expecting, even if Gibraltar's sales were stronger than analyst forecasts.

Gibraltar's operating loss swelled to $4.6 million, or 21 cents per share, from a loss of $1.6 million, or 7 cents per share, a year earlier. Analysts had expected a loss of 8 cents per share.

Gibraltar's reported loss was much larger because of a series of write-downs and restructuring charges, which pushed its net loss to $74.5 million, or $2.46 per share. That included a nearly $63 million write-down of intangible assets and almost $5 million in restructuring costs.

Gibraltar's sales grew to a stronger-than-expected $154 million from $144 million a year ago, mainly from strengthening in its commercial building products market. Analysts had been expecting about $143 million in sales.

Lipke said he expects to see improvement this year, with the uptick in home remodeling and improvement activity that was seen during the fourth quarter extending into this year.

He also said the company continues to be interested in making acquisitions, from smaller "bolt-on" deals that would expand the company's product line or market share, to much larger "game-changing" deals that would involve firms that could be as large as Gibraltar in size.

drobinson@buffnews.comnull