06.05.2016

Flat sales at Manitex

US based crane and access manufacturer Manitex has reported a slight rise in first quarter revenues, but higher profits.

Total revenues for the quarter were $102.4 million one percent above last year, thanks to a full quarter’s participation from PM Group. The Lifting equipment business saw revenues rise by more than five percent to $70.2 million with a substantial improvement in margins. Th e distribution business also improved, while ASV tracked division slipped back. Pre tax profits jumped from just $133,000 last year to $1.9 million this year.

Chief operating officer Andrew Rooke, said: “The first quarter saw further progress with our strategic and operational priorities. Repayments of $6.7 million were made on term debt and at the end of the quarter we had fully repaid the US recourse $14 million term loan for the PM acquisition. Our
working capital did increase in the quarter, although we expect this to be largely a temporary effect. The working capital increase came principally from a $23 million increase in receivables driven by the timing and the higher level of sales quarter over quarter, together with the timing of some European shipments at the end of the quarter”.

“Cost reduction and the balancing of activity with demand remain a high focus and despite some significant adverse sales mix comparisons, we achieved a gross margin very comparable with that of the adjusted margin for the first quarter of 2015. Contributing to this are our cost reduction initiatives established in 2015, where we set ourselves a target of $15 million of savings over the three years, 2015 to 2017. We achieved $2.2 million of savings in the first quarter equal to 40 percent of our annual 2016 target and currently expect to continue to exceed our
2016 target.”

Vertikal Comment

Not a bad result at - all things considered, the PM acquisition is certainly helping Manitex and also, if first impressions are anything to go by, PM. Manitex is managing the business pretty conservatively given how fast it has grown and that is no bad thing.

All in all a very positive set of numbers.