08.11.2022

Positive third quarter for Manitowoc

US based crane manufacturing group Manitowoc, which also owns Grove mobile cranes and Potain tower cranes has published its nine month and third quarter results.

Starting with the year to date numbers, revenues increased 15.5 percent to $1.41 billion, however higher sales and administration costs along with a slightly higher interest charge, pushed pre-tax profits down 10 percent or so to $19.6 million.

Moving on to the third quarter, total sales improved 12.4 percent to $454.7 million, while order intake was 12.7 percent lower than in the same quarter last year at $472 – but still out paced the invoice rate, leaving the backlog at the end of the quarter at $934.4 million up 5.9 percent on last year. Pre-tax profit came in at $2 million compared to $1.1 million loss in the same quarter last year

Chief executive Aaron Ravenscroft said: “I am very proud of the efforts put forth by our team in the third quarter. The team performed well in the face of persistent supply chain disruptions and continued inflationary pressure. Looking to the fourth quarter, we expect these headwinds to continue. Nevertheless, given our elevated shippable backlog combined with the volume of nearly finished cranes that carried over from the third quarter, we continue to target the low end of our Adjusted EBITDA guidance for 2022. Despite the challenging near term outlook, we remain committed to supporting our customers while executing our Cranes+50 strategy."

Vertikal Comment

While the third quarter numbers might not demonstrate it, this is a decent result for Manitowoc, which has been investing heavily in new products, with several new Potain and Grove models launched at bauma last month all of which look particularly good and should provide boost to the business in the year ahead.

Ravenscroft took over as chief executive just over at short notice two years ago, when the company was facing real challenges from an odd and misguided policy of his predecessor. Much of the damage that it caused has now been repaired and the company has started expanding into end user sales and support activities, through the acquisition of the sales and service activities from some of its long standing distributors. This is a trend which we have already seen in the loader and marine crane manufacturing industry and should help reduce or offset the worst downturns of the normal market cycles, while helping improve overall margins.

In summary Manitowoc appears to be on a positive trajectory at the moment.