17.10.2007

Haulotte up 29%

The Haulotte Group has reported first nine months revenues up by 29 percent on the same period last year at €444.9 million.

The breakdown by region and business segment remains broadly the same as last year although sales outside of Europe edged up a percentage point to 11 percent thanks to the opening of new sales subsidiaries.

The company is maintaining its most recent projections of 25 percent revenue growth with a net profit of around 12 percent.

Vertikal Comment

In a market that has shown some slight signs of slower growth and with the two market leaders concentrating more earnestly on the European market, Haulotte has done exceptionally well to step up its growth to 27 percent its highest nine month increase for at least three years.

The fourth quarter has always been Haulotte’s strongest, even in the slow old days of the early 00’s when after a sluggish year it would miraculously have a brilliant fourth quarter.

Last year was no exception with fourth quarter sales leaping by 50 percent compared to 2005. It says that order intake and backlog remains around 50 percent higher than it was a year ago.

With all this in mind CEO Alexandre Saubot looks like he is being overly conservative when he states “management maintains guidance for full year sales growth approaching 25%”

To achieve this would require fourth quarter growth of 18 percent, well below recent trends.

We therefore maintain our original prediction that Haulotte will achieve revenues this year closer to €675 million, which thanks to a strong Euro translates into over $950 million.

Who knows, depending on the Euro and Haulotte pulling off one of its miracle fourth quarters it might just be possible to breach a $billion?