Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
With continuing improvement in demand around the world, Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) report second-quarter 2011 profit per share of $1.72 excluding $204 million of expense related to the acquisition of Bucyrus, a 58-percent improvement from $1.09 in the second quarter of 2010.
Including the impact of Bucyrus, profit per share was $1.52, up 39 percent from the second quarter of 2010. Profit was $1.015 billion in the second quarter of 2011, an increase of 44 percent from $707 million in the second quarter of 2010. Sales and revenues of $14.230 billion were up 37 percent from $10.409 billion a year ago.
“Customer demand around the world continues to improve, and our sales and revenues reached an alltime record in the second quarter. Our employees, dealers and suppliers should feel great about the way they’re responding to the increase in customer demand,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Doug Oberhelman.
“We’re currently focused on four big themes linked to our corporate strategy. The first is executing the Cat business model and improving value for our customers. We’re doing that in a number of ways—improving quality, executing the Caterpillar Production System and the development of new products and solutions—such as our new range of products for Tier 4 emissions. The second theme is increasing capacity and production levels to satisfy the demand we see today and what’s down the road as the global economy continues to improve over the next few years. We’ve announced many significant investments in the United States and around the world over the past year and are expecting capital expenditures of about $3 billion in 2011. Demand growth and our investments through the end of June have resulted in more than 27,000 additional people in our global workforce since the beginning of 2010. We expect to continue hiring in 2011, including at our brand new U.S. facilities in Texas, Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio,” Oberhelman said.
“The third important theme is our focus on costs. There are certainly cost pressures in our business-freight and material costs are up, and our investments in R&D and capacity are driving increases. That said, we’re serious about improving the value of our products and services to customers and delivering great returns to stockholders, and that means we must stay focused on controlling costs. It’s a major priority, and it will continue. The disaster in Japan had a $200 million negative impact on second-quarter sales, was negative on costs and efficiency and lowered operating profit nearly $60 million. However, the negative impacts from Japan are now behind us,” Oberhelman added.
“Our fourth major theme is integrating and delivering the value we expect from our recent acquisitions of EMD and Bucyrus. We completed our historic acquisition of Bucyrus on July 8, 2011, and are pleased to welcome 10,000 new employees to Caterpillar. The acquisition of Bucyrus was driven by the robust long-term growth opportunities expected in mining. The acquisition, combined with our aggressive product development, significant capacity expansion plans and the strength of our dealer network positions us with the industry’s broadest range of surface and underground mining products and solutions to serve mining customers around the world. We are thrilled that Bucyrus is now Caterpillar,” Oberhelman added.
Outlook
Because we have completed the Bucyrus acquisition, our outlook includes an estimate of Bucyrus-related impacts. However, to provide a more consistent comparison with 2010 and our previous outlook, we are also providing our 2011 outlook excluding the impact of Bucyrus. Excluding the impact of Bucyrus, we are raising expectations for 2011. We expect sales and revenues in a range of $54 to $56 billion and profit per share of $6.75 to $7.25. That is an improvement from our previous outlook of $52 to $54 billion of sales and revenues and profit per share of $6.25 to $6.75.
Our 2011 financial results will include about a half year of Bucyrus results and most of the up-front and integration costs related to the acquisition. We expect that Bucyrus will add about $2 billion of sales in 2011 and negatively impact full-year profit by about $0.50 per share. In total, including Bucyrus, we expect sales and revenues in a range of $56 to $58 billion and profit per share of $6.25 to $6.75.
“While the economic recovery in the United States continues to be weaker than many expected, we’re forecasting continued moderate economic expansion. That, coupled with stronger growth in the developing world, is driving higher sales for Caterpillar. There’s been quite a bit of concern in the media over the past few months centered on China. While we’ve seen some softening of growth in China, dealer deliveries to end users were up in the second quarter of 2011 compared with the second quarter of last year and grew at a faster rate than the overall industry in China. In our view, China is doing a good job of balancing growth and inflation, and our expectations for China remain positive. That said, we can’t lose sight of the significant growth that’s going on around the world outside the United States and China. Economic activity and our business in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, CIS and greater Asia are robust,” Oberhelman added.
“While we expect moderate U.S. economic growth, we believe a lack of confidence in the business climate is the major impediment to a stronger recovery and job creation. Lack of clarity on a U.S. deficit reduction plan, trade policy, regulation, much needed tax reform and the absence of a long-term plan to improve the country’s deteriorating infrastructure do not create an environment that provides our customers with the confidence to invest. We’re confident that as a country we’ll eventually get it right, and we’re positioning Caterpillar to be ready when we do. The scale of investment in our existing businesses coupled with our recent acquisitions put us in a unique position for growth and leadership as we drive forward to meet our 2015 goals,” Oberhelman said.
