18.07.2013

Manitou drops 12%

Manitou has reported a significant drop in first half revenues, but with an improving trend in the second quarter, as a result it is restating its full year revenue downwards by five percent.

Looking at the half year numbers total revenues were down 12 percent to €591.2 million, this comprises €396 million from telehandlers and access equipment - 16 percent lower than this time last year.
€68 million from the industrial material handling -down 19 percent - largely due to the loss of the Toyota business in France and finally the CE business - largerly Gehl in the USA, reported revenues of €127.3 million - up a solid 10 percent on the year.

Looking at the second quarter the Telehandler and access business reported revenues of €224.1 million- 11 percent lower than a year ago, while Industrial Material handling was down 24 percent to €32.8 million and the CE department improved just one percent to €62.4 million. Total revenues were €319.4 million 10 percent off those for the first half 2012.. However Manitou says that it booked orders for 7,800 in the quarter, giving it a good start to push into the second half.

Geographically there were double digit declines in all regions apart from the Americas. The company has said that the strong Euro is causing its some challenges and eating up any efficiency savings that it is making.

Chief executive Dominique Bamas said: "Second quarter revenues show the second best quarterly performance since end 2008. It highlights the extent to which the efforts we have made to step up our production output have been fruitful. We also continue to organise our work to meet the demands of all our clients ever more responsively."

"After adjusting for the discontinued distribution of Toyota in France, the level of order intake is fairly close to that of Q2'12, although the mix is very different. The markets however remain barely readable, notably the rental market.

The stronger euro weighs more and more heavily on our competitiveness and our profitability. The pressure of currencies will continue to affect second half performance. This new constraint will unfortunately wipe out the efforts to reduce fixed costs that have been implemented since my arrival, and without which the Group's financial profile would have been significantly altered."

"Given the economic environment and the strong euro revaluation, we reconsider our outlook for the year with a five percent revenue decrease compared to 2012 and an operating margin of approximately 2.5 percent."

Vertikal Comment

Some of this 'softness' was predictable - such as the Toyota change over, however Manitou expects to see the decision pay-off significantly over the longer term.

Overall Manitou is in reasonable shape and has considerable upside potential as US growth continues and recovery in Southern Europe eventually comes on stream as eventually it will of course.