01.11.2011

Bronto orders jump

Finnish based truck mounted lift manufacturer Bronto has reported a strong jump in order intake for the third quarter, while sales remained flat and profits flagged.

Starting with the nine months, year to date revenues dropped just over eight percent to $68.1 million, due to slower order intake at the start of the year. Operating income plunged from $5 million to $1.7 million, due to the lower invoiced sales and a poor product mix in terms of margins. However order intake for the nine months jumped 55 percent to $108.8 million.

Looking at the third quarter, revenues increased almost 12 percent to $22.2 million, but this is, according to the company, more to do with exchange rate fluctuations as sales volumes were flat. Operating income for the quarter was just $200,000, compared to $1.4 million last year. Order intake in the quarter doubled to $42 million. Largely due to strong fire lift orders in Asia and some solid orders for its regular lifts from Australia.

Bronto is owned by US based Federal Signal, its chief executive, Dennis Martin, said: “We continued to make progress and improve our operating performance in the third quarter. Orders, net sales and operating income all increased versus last year, and we have improved our working capital metrics. Total orders increased 26 percent versus last year, and this represented the third consecutive quarter in which we recorded orders of over $200 million.”
“We are particularly encouraged by the order trends in our longer lead-time business groups, Environmental Solutions and Fire Rescue (Bronto). Orders for ESG were up 20 percent versus last year, and Bronto’s third quarter orders nearly doubled versus Q3 2010. The combined backlog for these two business groups now stands at $226 million, versus $140 million at the end of last year.”

“With the growing levels of orders and backlog, we had expected a higher level of shipments of Bronto units during the quarter than we achieved. Several units that had been expected to ship in the third quarter have been shifted to the fourth quarter. We continue to ramp up our production capacity to meet the higher levels of demand and improve production efficiencies in these longer lead-time businesses.”

Vertikal Comment

While this is a disappointing result for Bronto, it is likely to make up for some of the shortfall in the fourth quarter and should carry an excellent order book into 2012.

Bronto pulled through the recession far better than most other aerial lift companies thanks to its product mix and strong reputation. It has also bounced back surprisingly quickly from a lagging slow down last year and at the start of this year, and is now well placed to benefit from good news in several of the markets in which it operates.