09.11.2011

Losses double at Essex

US based Essex Crane has reported its third quarter results which show losses double that of last year.

Revenues for the nine months to the end of September were $67.1 million over 256 percent up on last year, due to the acquisition of Coast Crane a year ago. Pre-tax losses for the period were $20.6 million over twice that of last year’s $9.7 million loss.

In the third quarter revenues were $23.3 million more than 265 percent higher than last year, while pre-tax losses jumped from $3.1 million last year to $6.1 million.

Chief executive Ron Schad, said: "We continue to experience modest growth in our crawler crane fleet on a quarter over quarter basis. Rental rates remain stable, as they have been for the last several quarters. We are cautiously optimistic about continuing utilisation improvements in boom trucks and certain categories of our Rough Terrain crane and tower crane fleets.”

“Certain classes of our Rough Terrain and boom truck fleets are at utilisation levels that we believe will allow us to raise rental rates in the foreseeable future.”

"Our monthly crawler crane bookings continue to point to modest utilisation improvement, for the orders that we received since the beginning of the third quarter, 42 percent have been for the power and petrochemical sector, which is more consistent with historical levels and a significant improvement from what we have experienced in the last couple of years. We are cautiously optimistic that this trend will continue as we are experiencing strong quoting activity, relating to construction jobs that have already been awarded to contractors. The vast majority of these projects are scheduled to begin in 2012. Based on the mix of our third quarter bookings, we anticipate a gradual improvement in earnings through the first half of 2012."

"By the end of the fourth quarter of 2011, we will have taken delivery on the bulk of the $28 million of new equipment that we have ordered. This equipment is specifically focused on increasing our rental capacity in the asset classes where we have experienced the highest utilization of our rental fleet, specifically rough terrain cranes and boom trucks. We believe that as these assets are deployed, they will be a near-term catalyst for growing our revenue stream.”

"We are experiencing an increase in inquiries about purchasing used rental equipment, particularly for crawler cranes. As we have said previously, we believe that we have as much as $25 million of crawler crane and attachments in our fleet that have been underutilised even at the highest historic utilisation levels. As such, we have rededicated resources to capitalise on this interest.”