09.02.2021

Strong finish for Manitowoc

Manitowoc, owner of Grove and Potain, has reported its fourth quarter and full year results which show a strong pickup in the final three months of the year.

Total revenues for the 12 months were $1.44 billion, 21.5 percent down on the full year 2019, while the 2019 pre-tax profit of $59 million was converted into a loss of $2 million, entirely due to the lower revenues.

The fourth quarter however was a different, far more positive story, with revenues coming in just seven percent below that of the fourth quarter 2019, while order intake was almost eight percent higher at $508.6 million, leaving a backlog/order book at the end of December of $543.2 million, up 14.3 percent on the year. Pre-tax profit for the quarter was $9.3 million, 14 percent below last year's levels, due to a one off charge relating to an unspecified legal matter - or costs. Without this pre-tax profit would have come in around 30 percent above the same quarter in 2019.

Chief executive Aaron Ravenscroft said: “The fourth quarter was a strong finish to a challenging year. Led by a couple of sizable crawler purchases, order intake for the quarter totalled $508.6 million, and we ended the year with $543.2 million in backlog. Although we continue to trend toward a recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, we still see a significant amount of uncertainty in our end markets combined with growing material cost inflation, a softening dollar, and a less favourable product mix. Therefore, we are not providing 2021 financial guidance at this time.”

“Manitowoc’s balance sheet remains strong, and we have ample liquidity to fund our growth initiatives. We continue to evaluate acquisition opportunities, accelerate our product development in our All Terrain product line, scale-up our Chinese tower crane business and grow our tower crane rental fleet in Europe. 2021 will be a year of transition, and we will use it to lay the foundation for our future growth.”

Vertikal Comment

This is an exceptionally good result from Manitowoc, some of it down to the sale and delivery of a few large crawler cranes, as well as some positive currency gains. But having said all that the company is clearly doing much better and the numbers bode well for chief executive Aaron Ravenscroft who only took over in August - see: New CEO for Manitowoc. Since taking over he has managed to stop the damaging request for an investigation into US crane import tariffs that his predecessor had instigated and has launched the company on a much more positive trajectory.

The company’s conference call and presentation will be held tomorrow, but expect the positive upward trend to continue, especially as the year gathers pace.