25.10.2006

Terex cranes up 34 percent

Terex Crane division increased its revenues for the first nine months of 2006 by 34 percent to $1.23 billion.
Gross margins improved by 75 percent to $198 million, rising from 12 percent to 16 percent of sales.

SG&A expense while rising in real terms, dropped as a percentage of sales from 8.6 percent to 7.8 percent.
Income from operations almost tripled from $34 million in 2005, to $102 million this year, rising from 3.7 percent of sales to 8.2 percent.

The company’s order book almost tripled from $385 million at this stage last year, to over a billion dollars, or almost eight months of business at current levels.


"The Terex Cranes segment had another excellent quarter, considering this seasonally slow period with reduced production levels at our European operations. Revenue growth of over 48% versus the prior year's results shows that we are continuing to ramp up production, but that challenges still remain," commented Steve Filipov, president - Terex Cranes.

"More importantly, operating profit more than tripled over the prior year's results. The performance improvements continued to come from all businesses, with all product lines contributing significantly. Our operating results were impacted by a retrofit program on two models of our all-terrain crane product line. We continue to implement our Customer First principles and are standing behind our product and addressing these issues in the field and have an action plan in place.

Our Chinese operation, Sichuan Changjiang Engineering Crane Co, Ltd., also contributed favorably to this quarter's result and we are very excited about this newly acquired business, which has established us as a major player in the world's largest crane market. We are on track in integrating our Terex Business System approach and have started to utilize local supply chain and distribution synergies to continue to diversify our global franchise."

"Our backlog continues to climb, which is a positive sign of the demand for our crane products. However, customers need our products now, so we continue to concentrate on improvements in our manufacturing and component supply in order to improve our production rates. Our overall goal remains a simple one: We will continue to concentrate on putting the customer first and delivering top quality products around the globe in a timely manner."