Astec stock attains a 9-month high after sales rise and losses narrow
Astec Industries boosted its fourth-quarter revenues by 31.2% with increased sales of its paving equipment, helping narrow the company’s losses compared with a year earlier and boosting the company’s stock to the highest level in nearly nine months.
The Chattanoogabased asphalt and road building equipment maker reported Wednesday a net loss of $1.3 million, or 4 cents per share, on net sales of $349.9 million in the last three months of calendar 2022. In the same period a year earlier, Astec lost $9.9 million, or 44 cents per share, on net sales of $266.6 million.
In his first quarterly earnings report since becoming CEO in January, Jaco van der Merwe said Astec “capitalized on the success of our commercial teams by delivering doubledigit percentages of net sales growth in both infrastructure solutions and materials solutions” divisions of the company.
“We had a solid finish to the year as demand for our products remained robust in the fourth quarter, and top-line growth was achieved by realizing the benefits of pricing actions, volume and mix,” he said. “Investments in personnel and tools to improve output are paying off, and we were able to improve consolidated margins. We are on schedule to deliver our initial implementations of our standardized enterprise resource planning and related systems, which will further enhance efficiency.”
The company said it repurchased $4 million of its stock last year, and Astec’s backlog rose 19.7% in the fourth quarter to end 2022 at $912.7 million.
After the earnings report, shares of Astec rose nearly 4.7% Wednesday to close at $47.13 per share in trading on the Nasdaq exchange — the highest closing price for the company since last June.
The earnings report was the first since Astec terminated its former CEO, Barry Ruffalo, on Jan. 6. Astec said it recorded $4.4 million of restructuring-related costs in the fourth quarter and additional costs are anticipated from Ruffalo’s separation from the company in the current quarter.