Motion control and material handling products maker Columbus McKinnon reported its 2022 first quarter financial results on Thursday for the period ended June 30, and like most publicly-traded industrial distributors and suppliers in the current earnings reporting season, they showed significant year-over-year gains compared to the same quarter from a year ago that was during the height of the pandemic's business impacts.
CM's Q1 US sales of $124.5 million grew 66.7 percent.
The Buffalo, NY-based company's Q1 gross margin of 34.7 percent grew 250 basis points year-over-year and narrowly trailed Q1's 34.4 percent. Q1 operating profit of $10.7 million dwarfed the $1.8 million it had a year earlier and trailed Q4's $14.2 million, while Q1's operating margin of 5.0 percent surged 370 basis points year-over-year and trailed Q4's 7.6 percent. CM's took a total Q1 net loss of $7.3 million, compared to a $3.0 million loss a year earlier and a $9.6 million profit in Q4 2020.
"We had a very good start to fiscal 2022 delivering strong growth, expanding margins and achieving record backlog," commented David Wilson, Columbus McKinnon president and CEO. "We are encouraged by increasing demand in all markets. Importantly, we are also having success with our new products and customer solutions, as we continue to advance our Blueprint for Growth 2.0 strategy. Dorner, our new conveying solutions platform, is seeing strong demand and is outpacing expectations. We are working across the enterprise to drive growth initiatives as we pursue the many opportunities in front of us."
Looking ahead, CM expects its fiscal Q2 2021 sales (ending Sept. 30) to be between $225 million to $230 million.
