25.10.2012

Terex Cranes boosts profits

Terex cranes has announced third quarter results which show flat revenues with a sharp improvement in profitability.

Nine months revenues were $1.04 billion slightly below last year’s $1.09 billion, however operating profits were $97.7 million compared to a loss of $13.5 million last year. The division’s backlog/order book at the end of September was $507 million compared to $564 million last year.

Looking at the third quarter, revenues fell almost 25 percent to $290.4 million while operating profits jumped 90 percent to $47.6 million.

The Terex group as a whole saw nine month revenues rise over 25 percent to $5.65 billion, while pre-tax profits jumped more than 3.5 fold to $130.4 million.

Terex chief executive Ron DeFeo said: “Our earnings this quarter are in-line with our expectations, and reflect our continued focus on price discipline and cost containment. The mix of performance was varied, with Cranes, Aerial Work Platforms and Material Handling & Port Solutions achieving favourable results, while the results of our Construction and Materials Processing segments showed some softening. Overall, we remain optimistic that the end markets for many of our products will continue to improve.”

“The continuing strength in many of our markets, combined with our persistent focus on margin improvement, cash generation, and the integration of our MHPS segment, provide us with continued confidence for favourable long term growth and profitability. However order timing and seasonal order patterns have impacted our AWP segment on a near term basis. This is apparent in the backlog for these segments. In the short term, balancing the different demand environments that each of our businesses is facing and the benefits of our recent capital structure activities, we now expect full year 2012 sales of approximately $7.5 billion and hold constant our full year earnings per share.”

“We do not view this near term uncertainty as evidence of a protracted slowdown. We will remain focused in 2013 on margin improvement and cash generation, as well as the integration of MHPS into our global team. When combined with approximately $44 million in reduced interest expense associated with recent debt repayments and re-pricing, we expect 2013 to be a year of moderate top line growth along with meaningful improvement in earnings per share and return on invested capital.”