Menomonee Falls-based Actuant Corp. reported a fiscal third quarter loss of $93.0 million, or $1.24 per share, compared with net income of $34.4 million, or 45 cents per share in the same period a year ago.
Actuant’s quarterly sales held firm at $344.2 million, up from $343.3 million a year earlier.
During the quarter, the company incurred a $150 million write-down to account for the sale of its Electrical Segment.
Robert Arzbaecher, chairman and chief executive officer of Actuant, said, “As expected, the third quarter represented an inflection point for Actuant as we delivered a 22 increase in EPS from continuing operations and improved sequential sales and profit margins. Solid core growth was achieved in both the Industrial and Energy segments, and the sequentially improved Engineered Solutions sales signal OEM destocking efforts are abating. Due to weak economic conditions, we continue to experience subdued activity in our global industrial markets and inconsistent demand. However, we did a good job balancing cost reduction actions and growth investments, as evidenced by our 19.6 percent EBITDA margins. Our third quarter EPS also benefitted from both lower interest expense and an effective income tax rate. We have asked a lot of our employees this year and I want to thank our world-class global team for their efforts in delivering the results.”
On June 3, the company announced its intent to divest the Electrical Segment.
“As we look ahead to fiscal 2014, we face a market environment in which low global GDP and uncertainty are likely to persist. Actuant will continue to focus on taking advantage of our broad product and geographic scope to capitalize on profitable growth opportunities. Based on our current view of economic indicators as well as Actuant’s business trends and specific growth drivers, we anticipate fiscal 2014 core sales growth of 3 to 5 percent,” Arzbaecher said. “We remain focused on long-term secular growth drivers which provide exciting organic and acquisition driven growth prospects. Given our healthy acquisition pipeline, the strongest balance sheet in our history and continued robust free cash flow generation, we are well positioned financially to capitalize on these strategic growth opportunities.”
