Terex Lifting president Fil Filipov has confirmed that his top priority for the year is to “make meaningful improvements in our product support”, perhaps suggesting a period of consolidation for the acquisitive manufacturer.

The addition of tower crane manufacturers Peiner and Comedil in late 1998 and a badging agreement with Japanese crawler crane manufacturer IHI helped Terex push its sales up 22% to $941.3m for 1999, narrowly missing the $1bn target for which it had earlier seemed on course.

Fourth quarter sales for Terex Lifting actually fell from $210m in 1998 to $194.4m, in spite of acquisitions. This is mainly attributed to closure of the Milwaukee scissor lift plant.

Over the year, growth was led by a strong show from utility aerial devices, material handling equipment, and the lattice boom and tower cranes businesses. The European aerials business grew by more than 25%; the Telelect utility aerial products posted a 38% rise in revenues; and sales revenue from the Square Shooter material handlers rose 51%. Terex also claims to have grown American Crane’s share of the lattice boom crawler market from 2% to more than 10% by offering American-branded IHI crawlers in North America.

The performance of crawlers, towers and material handlers were offset by a slowdown in the hydraulic crane business and a 30-day strike at the Waverly crane facility. Excluding the impact of closure of the Milwaukee factory, operating profit in 1999, increased 22% to $100.1m.

The hydraulic mobile crane business had a good first half of 1999 but weakened during the second half, resulting in a 5% fall from a strong 1998. Despite a 5% fall in revenues, Terex still managed to make a 10% operating margin on its hydraulic cranes.

The product support drive marginally increased the cost of sales. Operating expenses as a percentage of revenues increased from 6.0% in 1998 to 6.2% in 1999. During the fourth quarter, Terex developed a program to improve customer service, creating 30 mobile service centres in North America and Europe, all connected to a central location with global positioning systems capability.

“We had a record year despite some challenges with two of our product lines,” said Filipov. “The substantial diversification we have implemented over the past several years is helping us to better navigate through different phases of the business cycle.

“We entered new markets in Central and South America and Australia and were very successful in obtaining new business in those areas with hydraulic and articulated cranes and utility aerial devices. We expanded our presence in the North American market for tower cranes and helped grow the market and our share.

“In our crane segment, we continued to provide our customers with a superior value for their investment and we increased our market share in the USA for the sixth consecutive year. Our main priority in the Lifting segment in 2000 is to make meaningful improvements in our product support.” Reporting on 25 February, parent company Terex Corporation announced group sales up 50% to nearly $1.9bn and net income of $172.9m, up from $34.5m in 1998. Shares in Terex Corp. fell to below $12, having begun the year on more than $26 and been at a 52-week high of $35.