Rexnord Corporation, Milwaukee, WI, a manufacturer of highly engineered precision motion technology products, focused on power transmission products, reported sales grew 20.2%, excluding the acquisition of Falk, in first quarter fiscal 2007 over the prior-year quarter to $288.4 million. Approximately $25.2 million of this increase was due to the timing of the Falk acquisition in May 2005 as prior-year first quarter only included approximately 1.5 months of Falk sales.
The remaining $23.3 million sales increase was driven primarily by strength in our industrial products end markets of energy, construction equipment, natural resource extraction, metals processing and infrastructure expansion (mining, cement, aggregates) as well as strong demand for our aerospace products. Foreign currency fluctuations also favorably benefited sales by approximately $3.5 million during the quarter as the Euro and Canadian dollar strengthened against the U.S. dollar.
Bob Hitt, Rexnord’s CEO, said, “Throughout the first quarter, we continued to see very positive trends in our businesses and end markets. Our order growth compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2006 was 12.9% (pro forma to include Falk for the entire prior year quarter), and we built $41.0 million of backlog in the quarter, bringing our total backlog to $348 million, an increase of $101.3 million or 41% compared to a year ago
“Since the end of the quarter, we’ve completed and closed on the sale of the company to affiliates of Apollo Management, L.P. and also made an acquisition in China. The acquisition was relatively small in size (purchase price of approximately $6.5 million dollars with annual sales of approximately $12 million) but it provides us additional manufacturing capacity and capabilities in China and will allow us to be strategically well positioned to serve both U.S. customers in and moving to China as well as the local Chinese market.”
Related Links
Apollo Management to Buy Rexnord for $1.825B
Rexnord Corporation to Acquire Falk Corporation
