Titan Machinery Returns to Profitability by Inventory Reduction

Construction and agricultural equipment distributor Titan Machinery posted $317.6 million in fiscal fourth quarter revenue compared to $335.5 million in the previous fourth quarter, a 5.3-percent decline.
March 31, 2017
2 min read

Construction and agricultural equipment distributor Titan Machinery posted $317.6 million in fiscal fourth quarter revenue compared to $335.5 million in the previous fourth quarter, a 5.3-percent decline. Revenue from rental and other was $14 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017 compared to $16.1 million in the year-ago quarter, a 13-percent slide.

In Titan’s construction segment, fourth quarter revenue was $81.7 million, down from $91.3 million a year ago, a 10.5-percent dip.

For the full year of fiscal 2017, Titan Machinery’s revenue was $1.21 billion, compared to $1.37 billion in fiscal 2017, an 11.7-percent drop. However, the company generated adjusted EBITDA of $11.7 million in fiscal 2017, compared to adjusted EBITDA loss of $3 million in fiscal 2016.

For the full year 2017, revenue from rental and other was $57.9 million compared to $69.5 million in fiscal 2016, a 16.8-percent decline.

“For fiscal 2017, we exceeded our inventory reduction plans and began implementing a restructuring plan that is consolidating certain dealership locations and reorganizing our operating structure,” said David Meyer, Titan Machinery’s chairman and CEO. “Throughout fiscal 2017, we took the necessary steps to manage through difficult operating conditions, including reducing our operating expenses and reducing our equipment inventory levels by $197 million, which enabled us to continue to generate solid adjusted cash flow from operations.

“Even though fiscal 2018 is expected to be a challenging operating environment, we are well positioned to generate positive diluted earnings per share, exclusive of the anticipated charges associated with our restructuring activities. We have reduced our equipment inventory by $543.6 million, or 58 percent, during the past three years and we expect to reduce equipment inventory by another $50 million in fiscal 2018.”

Titan Machinery, based in West Fargo, N.D., is No. 43 on the RER 100.

About the Author

Michael Roth

Editor

Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.

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