Barry Pennypacker, president and chief executive officer of Manitowoc, said:
“During the second quarter, our sales were further impacted by a challenging market environment on a number of levels, particularly in mobile cranes in the Americas. This weakness was in part offset by strength in tower cranes.
“While the market conditions are beyond our control, we continue to execute our strategic initiatives by focusing on quality and reliability in all of our products, velocity and innovation, and aligning our cost structure to meet current and future demand levels. Our efforts are paying off. By focusing on items within our control, we tripled our adjusted operating income on flat sales during the first half of the year, underscoring the success of our efforts to drive lean operating principles using ‘The Manitowoc Way’.”
For the full year 2016, Manitowoc anticipates a decline of approximately 10-12% in revenue compared to the previous year.
Pennypacker said, “As we approach the back half of the year, we expect to see market challenges continue and a similar dynamic in sales with continued strength in tower cranes more than offset by continued weakness in mobile cranes. In spite of the positive energy we experienced at bauma this year, it is clear that our customers remain cautious around spending given the ongoing global macro-economic uncertainty.
“As a result, we have lowered our full-year 2016 sales and operating margin guidance. We are confident, however, that the actions we are taking now to position Manitowoc over the long term will allow us to exit this cycle stronger and poised to deliver significant profit growth and shareholder value creation,” added Pennypacker.
Manitowoc said it intends to relocate its crawler crane manufacturing operations from their traditional home in Manitowoc, Wisconsin to Shady Grove, Pennsylvania.
According to the company this action addresses its strategic imperative of reducing its manufacturing capacity globally. Manitowoc’s crawler business intends to maintain its product engineering and related support functions in the Manitowoc area, and the company will maintain its headquarters there.