Titan Machinery, a network of full service construction and agricultural equipment stores with an active rental program posted fiscal third quarter revenue of $493.1 million, compared to $588 million in last year’s third quarter, a 16.1-percent decline. However revenue from “rental and other,” which is predominantly rental, increased to $26.6 million for the quarter, compared to $24.7 million for the year-ago quarter, a 7.7-percent hike.
The company’s revenue decrease was primarily in the agricultural side of the business, while the construction side fared reasonably well.
“For our construction segment, we reported another quarter of improved financial results, including same-store sales growth over 10 percent, higher equipment margins, and an improvement in pre-tax income,” said Titan Machinery chairman and CEO David Meyer. “Our agricultural segment continues to face a number of industry headwinds as we have previously discussed, including lower commodity prices and lower projected net farm income.”
The company has a number of distributorships in Eastern Europe that have been impacted by geopolitical instability in Ukraine. “However, we have implemented initiatives to improve this segment of our business and are encouraged by improving trends as compared to the second quarter of this fiscal year.”
Meyer told an investors’ conference call that the rebounding housing industry is a positive indicator for medium and light equipment product offerings.
“Our rental and other revenue increased 7.7 percent in the third quarter, reflecting an increase in rentals of inventory, primarily from heavy industrial units such as scrapers, cranes and excavators, which are not part of our designated rental fleet,” Meyer added.
Titan Machinery is No. 31 on the RER 100.
