03.02.2015

Manitou lifts revenues 6%

Telehandler and access equipment manufacturer Manitou has announced full year revenues of €1,246 million, six percent higher than in 2013.

The telehandlers and aerial lift division saw revenues rise by four percent to just under €800 million, while the compact equipment division - largely Gehl - improved 17 percent to €240 million. The service and support business also managed a three percent increase at 206.8 million.

Geographically, Southern Europe, which includes France, slipped six percent to €368 million, while Northern Europe posted a 15 percent gain to €464 million. The Americas also saw healthy progress up 12 percent to €277 million, while Asia and the Pacific rim managed a three percent gain to €136.3 million.

The fourth quarter saw slower progress, with overall sales up just two percent, to €192.6 million, largely due to a six percent decline in telehandler and access sales, due to a slowdown in France and Russia. Partially offset by strong performances in the UK as well as Central and Northern Europe and North America.

Gehl - or the Compact Equipment division - jumped 27 percent to €62.9 million mainly driven by the North American construction market-the division includes North American telehandler sales. Fourth quarter revenues from service were up nine percent to 53.7 million.

Looking at the fourth quarter by region, Southern Europe dropped 16 percent to €83.6 million, while Northern Europe was flat at €112.7 million. The Americas saw a 31 percent improvement to €75 million, while Asia and the rest of the world grew 10 percent to €37.8 million.

Chief executive Michel Denis said: "The good performance in the fourth quarter permits us to close the 2014 period with an increase in sales of six percent compared to 2013 which exceeds our objective. With the exception of Southern Europe which was adversely impacted by the French and Italian economies, the other regions completed the year in a growth position, despite the slowdown which burdened the agricultural sector in Latin America as well as the political and financial crisis impacting the Russian-Ukrainian region.”

“Within this very contrasted environment, order intake in the fourth quarter grew, permitting us to close 2014 with an order backlog above the level at the end of 2013."

"From an operational perspective, the group continued the industrial reorganisation of several production sites. These changes will improve customer service and permit us to benefit from capacity made available in December by the termination of the Toyota mast assembly contract (€17 million in 2014)."

"Most of these initiatives had been completed by the fourth quarter, and all of them will be completed during the first quarter of 2015. All of these factors lead us to expect that the sales trend for 2015, excluding the exchange rate impact, will be an increase of around three percent."

Vertikal Comment

Overall this is not a bad performance from Manitou, although it is clearly suffering from a weakness in its home market, in spite of progress to increase exports in recent years. In fact it is interesting to note that sales in Northern Europe continue to pull ahead of Southern Europe in terms of revenues, something that is likely to remain even after the domestic market finally picks up.

While the year as a whole is reasonable, the fourth quarter must be a disappointment for the company in terms of telehandler and aerial lift sales. It does however start the year with a larger order book than it had this time last year - it would be interesting to see how this is made up by division and region - which ought to give it a good 'push-off' in quarter one.

There is plenty more the company can do to improve sales, so as long as it gets off to a good start it should post similar gains in 2015 as it achieved this year, in spite of the current economic uncertainty.