A still-slow aerospace market added to declining sales and earnings for Heroux-Devtek Inc. in the fourth quarter and last year all together.

But the main perpetrator was the pleasant ride that the Canadian Dollar has been on in the past few months.

For example, the Longueuil landing-equipment and industrial goods maker said yesterday that its fourth-quarter profits slipped to $85 million from $92.1 million the year before, a $7.1-million dip.

Without the $9.5-million currency influence, returns would have mounted by $2.4 million, said Real Belanger, Company Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer.

Proceeds for the period, plunged to $4.4 million from $6.4 million.

In financial 2010, Heroux-Devtek sales dropped 5.1% to $320.4 million from $337.6 million, whilst revenues slipped to $16 million from $21.4 million.

In a morning conference call, President Gilles Labbe dubbed the results as a solid presentation, in spite of the lasting slump.

Labbe said, "The military aerospace market remains solid with sales increases of 8.6%, but this was offset by 12.3% sales decreases in the commercial aerospace market".

Cameron Doerksen, an analyst with Montreal brokerage Versant Partners, said that the U. S. exchange rate during the fourth quarter in 2009 was $1.24 on an average.

Doerksen said that in the last quarter, it was $1.04, "so that's a pretty big movement", mostly because 83% of Heroux-Devtek's profits are produced in U. S. Dollars.