21.07.2022

Solid first half for Alimak

Swedish international mastclimber, façade access and hoist manufacturer Alimak, has published its half year results.

Total revenues for the six months to the end of June increased 12.1 percent to SK2.1 billion (€192.4 million), while orders improved 15.8 percent to SK2.3 billion (€220 million) the increases came from all three principal divisions, Façade Access, Construction hoists and mastclimbers etc… and Industrial, while the minor wind division declined again as the company winds down some of its activities in the sector. Pre-tax profit increased 16 percent to SK218 million (€21 million).

Looking at the second quarter revenues climbed 13 percent to SK1.08 billion (€103 million), with order intake jumping 36 percent to SK1.25 billion (€101.6 million) generating a pre-tax profit of SK127 million, (€12.1 million). Once again improvements came from all three leading divisions.

Chief executive Ole Kristian Jødahl said: "During the quarter, we report strong growth of order intake. It is very pleasing to see that our initiatives to enhance growth are gaining traction and that we are leveraging on our strong global offering and market position. As an important part of driving profitable growth and delivering increased value to our stakeholders, we are now also ramping up our M&A activities. I am proud of the way the entire organisation has worked together as a team to serve our customers and to continue to develop Alimak Group in a challenging business environment.”

“We continued to face supply chain challenges in components, which we have managed in a good way. Service revenues for the group continued to show solid organic growth in the quarter, in line with our strategy. During the quarter we continued to mitigate the effects of increased costs through active price management. Our investments in sales and R&D have increased, reflecting our focus on profitable growth. Construction delivered strong order intake in the quarter driven by strong equipment sales, especially in the US, and with solid rental order intake in Europe. We continue to expand our product and services offering based on our connected assets and digitalisation strategy, with the ambition to accelerate growth and increasing our market shares. I am very glad to announce the acquisition of Tall Crane Equipment, which reflects our strategic goal of being close to our customers in the markets they operate. Tall Crane Equipment has been a loyal customer for many years, and the acquisition will position us well to grow our Group offering in Canada.”

"Industrial continued to deliver strong order intake growth, with solid equipment sales in the Americas and continued strong order intake in the Marine segment. Our investments in our sales organisation and in the development of our customer and segment focused solutions are clearly having an effect. The division is in a positive trend of accelerated profitable growth.”

“Facade Access reported a very strong organic order intake including a major standard equipment project in the Middle East as well as solid order intake in rest of Asia. The European market remains at a relatively good activity level, and we continue to see increased activity in the US. Our efforts to improve profitability in the division continues. Short term, we are still impacted by cost inflation and supply chain issues. Wind reported a decrease in order intake. The Chinese market continues to be challenging also with delays in some projects affected by Covid-19 restrictions in Shanghai.”

“The overall business environment is expected to remain challenging during the remainder of the year with supply chain disturbances, high-cost inflation, and macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty. We will continue to execute on the New Heights Programme to drive profitable growth. Our focus continues to be on serving our customers, developing our solutions portfolio, driving operational excellence, and accelerating our M&A activities. All in a safe and sustainable way.”

Vertikal Comment

This is a strong set of results from Alimak, which is seeing a strong upsurge in the permanent façade maintenance business. The company is also pushing its service operations with 60 percent of second quarter revenues and 67 percent of orders coming from equipment sales.

The move into the tower crane business will be interesting, the question is will Alimak hold onto this part of the Canadian business over the long term, and perhaps expand into other markets, or will it divest this part of the business to focus on hoists? Time will tell, of course.