Actuant’s earnings plummet
Butler-based Actuant Corp. reported second quarter net income of $3.2 million, or 6 cents per share, down from $22.2 million, or 35 cents per share, for the same period a year ago.
Results for the most recent quarter included restructuring charges of $3.1 million.
The company’s sales for the quarter declined 25 percent to $300 million from $400 million a year earlier.
Robert Arzbaecher, chairman and chief executive officer of Actuant, said, "During our seasonally weakest second quarter, Actuant experienced increasingly difficult market conditions due to the challenging global economic environment. Our results reflect the impact of weak end market demand, extended customer shutdowns, and our own inventory reduction efforts. While overall core sales declined 27 percent in the quarter, we generated year-over-year core growth in our maintenance driven Energy segment and in some of our smaller businesses. We have and will continue to implement aggressive restructuring and cost reduction actions to help offset the impact of weaker demand. We have reduced headcount, consolidated facilities, eliminated shifts and established short work week schedules to better align our production, inventory and costs with lower customer demand. These actions drove a 10% headcount reduction in our second quarter alone. In keeping with our focus on cash flow, we reduced primary working capital during the quarter and generated free cash flow of $28 million."
Earlier in the week, the company announced that its financial reporting segments were being modified to reflect changes in the portfolio due to acquisitions, as well as business reporting lines.
The company’s former industrial segment was divided into two reporting segments, industrial and energy, to provide additional transparency to its growing energy-related businesses.
The new industrial segment includes Enerpac, Simplex, Milwaukee Cylinder, Precision Sure-Lock and TT Fijnmechanica (TTF).
The energy segment will consist of the Hydratight joint integrity business and the recently acquired Cortland rope and cable business.
The electrical segment is virtually unchanged from the company’s previous segment reporting, except for the addition of the Turner Electric business from the previous Engineered Products segment.
The former engineered products and actuation systems segments, with the exception of Turner Electric, will be combined into the new engineered solutions segment.
