Valmont Industries Inc.
(
VMI
) announced the acquisition of a 30,000 square-foot manufacturing
plant of Katana Summit LLC. The acquired asset is located in
Columbus and spreads across 75 acres of land. The financial terms
of the acquisition remained undisclosed.
Katana Summit LLC manufactures and supplies wind turbine
towers in North America. The goal of the company is to add long
term and positive value to its customers, employees, stakeholders
and communities.
Valmont intends to use the plant to manufacture steel
transmission structures for the utility industry. With the
addition of the plant, the company will benefit from increased
manufacturing capacity. It expects the plant to have additional
annual capacity of about $100 million by 2014.
Last month, Valmont released its third quarter 2012 results.
The company logged third-quarter 2012 earnings of $2.12 per
share, topping the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.06 and
exceeding the prior-year earnings of $1.59. The fabricated metal
product maker's profit surged 34.6% year over year to $56.7
million on higher revenues.
Revenues increased 8.6% year over year to $729.8 million,
boosted by growth across all the segments, particularly the
Utility Support Structures segment. However, sales missed the
Zacks Consensus Estimate of $739.0 million.
Looking ahead, Valmont expects continued strength in its
utility business in the remainder of 2012. It also expects
healthy demand for irrigation equipments from farmers in the
fourth quarter.
Valmont expects the demand in the Engineered Infrastructure
Products and Coatings segments to remain relatively stable.
Moreover, the company expects higher demand in the Utility
Support Structures segment as well as strong demand for
irrigation equipments based on increased firm income in
2013.
Valmont, which competes with
Lindsay Corporation
(
LNN
), maintains a Zacks #2 Rank, which translates into a short-term
(1 to 3 months) Buy rating. We currently have a long-term
Outperform recommendation on the stock.
LINDSAY CORP (LNN): Free Stock Analysis
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VALMONT INDS (VMI): Free Stock Analysis
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