16.02.2010

Slight improvement for Haulotte

Haulotte has issued its preliminary revenue numbers for fourth quarter and full year 2009. The fourth quarters shows a slight improvement in quarterly revenue trends with sales up on quarter three.

Total full year revenues were €202 million, a fall of 55.2 percent compared to 2008. Equipment sales declined by 63.6 percent to €139.4 million, Service revenues, which include parts sales, fell by 11 percent and rental revenues by two percent -17 percent on a like for like basis wich excludes the Access Rentals acquisition in the UK in mid 2009 and Horizon High Reach in Argentina in early 2008.

Geographically European sales fell by 63 percent to €139.9 million, North American revenues grew four percent to €33.8 million (of which €21.9 million came from BilJax), while Asia declined by 15 percent to €16.7 million or 8.3 percent of the total and South America fell 39 percent to €11.5 million or 5.7 percent of total revenues.

Fourth quarter revenues for the group were €55.6 million, a fall of 27.5 percent compared to the same quarter last year and slightly better than in the third quarter.

Haulotte said: “The business has been stable since the beginning of 2009, and there is a slight improvement compared to the previous quarter. However, the wait-and-see approach adopted by many of our customers and the limitation of credit means we are unlikely to see a market recovery during the first half of 2010.”

In terms of profitability Haulotte says that the second half is likely to be similar to the first half, with cost reductions being offset by low sales volumes and high inventory costs. The company lost €32 million in the first half.

Haulotte has also confirmed that after breaching its financial covenants during the second half of 2009, it has reached an agreement with its bankers for new credit conditions which will run until July 2013.

Vertikal Comment

Although preliminary this is a slightly better result than expected and encouraging in that it indicates stability at worst and a marginal improvement as most likely. It is too early to read too much into these numbers but it does suggest that the company will have a better year in 2010 even if business remains tough.

This is yet one more result that suggests we are at or even slightly past the bottom of the market, however the next six months will remain challenging as a number of small to medium sized rental companies (and possibly the odd manufacturer) run out of cash and fail, causing further bad debt write offs at suppliers such as Haulotte and its competitors.

Haulotte will publish its full results on March 10th