05.11.2015

Mixed quarter for Manitex

Manitex the US-based boom truck, crane and aerial lift manufacturer has reported a reasonably positive third quarter.

The company has yet to post the full nine months results, so we have had to pick our way over the information currently available.
Total revenues year to date are almost 72 percent higher at $308.2 million thanks to the acquisitions of Valla, ASV and PM Group. Pre-tax profits are harder to gauge from the information published so far but appear to be around $3 million, down from last year’s $10.3 million. They do however include a lot of hidden costs associated with the take-overs and also the slow-down in the company’s core boom truck market.

In the third quarter the company saw revenues jump more than 46 percent to $96.7 million. The company has now started separating out the Lifting Equipment results so we can see that they make up $66.9 million of the total. We also know that revenues at PM were $23 million of the total and helped offset slower boom truck sales at Manitex due to the challenging conditions in the energy market. Pre tax profit for the period was $209,000 compared to $3.8 million last year. The backlog at the end of September was $88.9 million compared to $102 million this time last year.

Chief executive David Langevin said: “Our quarterly results reflect continued weakness in our core straight-mast crane boom truck markets. However, our strategy to diversify our revenue streams and to pursue a variable cost production model have us well positioned in these volatile markets. We have also seen positive results from our cost control efforts which is reflected in the 18.9 percent gross margin for the current quarter representing a solid improvement over the 16.5 percent margin of the same quarter a year ago. Further, our latest addition to our organization the PM Group reported a 13 percent EBITDA margin for the third quarter and ASV our joint venture company with Terex Corporation added EBITDA at 9.5 percent. Our integration of PM and the development of the independent ASV distribution network are progressing well and we are seeing the market for knuckle boom cranes continue to grow."

“Our priorities for this year and next continue to be integration and execution of our new acquisitions along with the strengthening of our balance sheet. To date we have reduced our overall debt by $23.1 million thereby lowering our interest expense and improving our financial position. In addition, we believe we will finish the year strong in this area to further improve our debt ratios.”

We will update these numbers later today when we hope to have the full P&L statement.

Vertikal Comment

The material provided so far makes if difficult to really look into the numbers, however while the current period is probably slightly chaotic at Manitex as it absorbs so many relatively big and diverse acquisitions it does appear to be on top of things and the future looks bright.

It will surely spend the rest of this year incorporating the new businesses and organising it ready to really start exploiting the substantial potential for the merged operation. While the next quarter or two may be a bit of a rocky ride for investors, we are confident that the company will start to shine in 2016 and if it also gets a boost from an upswing in economic activity in Europe as well as North America it could really impress next year.

One thing it does not really need at this point is another acquisition for a while.