Westport’s Terex Corp. issued a grim earnings report today. It said it had a $421.5 million fourth quarter loss, would do poorly in 2009, and has already cut or will cut more than 5,000 jobs, including the majority of its temporary work force.
Shares fell $3.22, or 24 percent, to $10.40 in aftermarket electronic trading, having closed earlier up 10 cents at $13.62. The stock, which last May traded as high as $76.25, was hit hard by the global market meltdown, bottoming at $8.97 in November.
Terex’s loss in the final quarter of 2008 was equivalent to $4.46 a share, compared with net income of $174.0 million, or $1.67 per share, for the fourth quarter of 2007.
The latest period includes charges of $4.84 per share to write down the value of goodwill in the company’s construction, road building and utility products businesses. It also was hurt by charges of 24 cents a share related to cutting production levels. Excluding these items, profit would have totaled 62 cents per share.
Revenue dropped roughly 20 percent to $2.08 billion from $2.59 billion a year ago, as declining demand in the company’s aerial work platforms, construction and materials processing businesses continued.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, on average, were expecting a fourth-quarter profit of 61 cents a share on higher revenue of $2.28 billion. Analysts generally exclude one-time items from their estimates.
For fiscal 2008, Terex reported net income of $71.9 million, or 72 cents a share, down from $613.9 million, or $5.85 a share, for fiscal 2007. Twelve-month revenue came to $9.89 billion, an increase of 8.2 percent from $9.14 billion in 2007.
“This past year has been like no other — the first half of the year exhibited robust growth and expansion, while the second half of the year was severely impacted by the global credit crisis and economic deterioration, which drove significant declines in customer demand in our businesses,” said Ron DeFeo, chairman and chief executive, in a statement.
But going forward, Terex expects declining demand and the negative effects of the stronger dollar to push 2009 sales down 30 percent to 35 percent compared with 2008, implying sales of $6.43 bilion to $6.92 billion.
That’s well below the $8.16 billion that analysts have forecast.
“We are experiencing increasing levels of cancellations in our backlog for crane and mining products, as well as delays in acceptance of deliveries, as our customers in these areas are not immune to the effects of the global economic downturn,” DeFeo said.
Terex declined to provide earnings guidance at this time, citing poor visibility.
