Posted July 26, 2010
Columbus McKinnon reports loss
Columbus McKinnon Corporation reported net sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2011 were $119.1 million, relatively unchanged when compared with $119.0 million from the same period in the prior year.
Growing sales in Europe and the hoist products business in the Americas offset the $1.2 million impact of the October 2009 divestiture of the American Lifts business and the $1.3 million effect of unfavorable foreign currency translation.
Sales declined sequentially from $123.0 million in the fiscal 2010 fourth quarter primarily due to currency translation upon significant strengthening of the U.S. dollar relative to the euro.
"Bookings continued to improve during the first quarter with double digit increases in each month as the global economy recovers from its trough of a year ago. Unfortunately, we were unable to take advantage of the strong order activity this quarter due to slower than expected facility integration, including hiring difficulties at our newly-reorganized facilities, and global supply chain bottlenecks. Our focus at this time is on addressing these issues to reduce lead time and convert our expanding backlog into sales in the second quarter," said Timothy T. Tevens, president and CEO.
The company reported a fiscal 2011 first quarter net loss of $0.7 million, or 4 cents per diluted share, compared with a net loss of $2.4 million, or 13 cents per diluted share, for the same period last year.
