Seems like everywhere you look, there's solid industrial activity. Ingersoll-Rand
Revenue in the first quarter jumped 24% as the company saw 33% higher sales of its assortment of cranes. Like other industrial equipment makers, this higher sales base is leading to better operating efficiency and stronger operating leverage -- to the tune of a nearly two-and-a-half-point improvement in gross margins and better than a three-point improvement in operating margins. As for earnings per share, they were up about, oh, 150%.
Cranes are the story here, but Manitowoc does more. It's also a leading food-service company with a big presence in ice-making machinery, and its marine business builds and repairs ships. While I don't mean to denigrate these units' performance, the crane segment out-earns them (on a segment operating basis) by more than 3.5-to-1.
Much like aerial work platform specialist JLG
Like any hot cyclical story, there's a worrying chance that the stock price will get unstuck from the company's long-term value. Since this stock has risen more than 200% from its lows, that's a valid concern. You've got to assign robust growth to future cash flows to come up with an attractive target, but comparing Manitowoc to other firms like Joy Global or Ingersoll-Rand suggests that both better growth and margins are possible.
For more heavy lifting:
Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).