* Q1 EPS $1.21 vs Street view 86 cents
* Raises full-year EPS outlook to $5.50 from $5.00
* Growing share in high-margin businesses
* Shares up 8 percent in premarket trading
By Scott Malone
May 1 (Reuters) – Farm equipment maker Agco Corp
said first-quarter earnings surged 50 percent, blowing past Wall
Street forecasts, helped by strong sales in North America and a
pickup in European demand for agricultural equipment.
The results were driven by booming growth in demand for
agricultural commodities — U.S. farmers this year planted the
largest corn crop in 75 years — and the maker of tractors and
combine harvesters raised its full-year profit forecast by 10
percent.
“The growing population and the shift to higher protein
diets are driving increases in the consumption of food and
long-term demand for grain,” said Martin Richenhagen, the
company’s chief executive. “In Western Europe, industry demand
has returned to more normal levels, and recovery is continuing
in Eastern Europe.”
Agco shares soared 8 percent $50.26 in premarket trading.
The company said on Tuesday that profit was $120.2 million,
or $1.21 per share in the first quarter, compared with $80
million, or 81 cents per share, a year earlier.
Sales rose 26.5 percent to $2.27 billion.
Analysts, on average, expected 86 cents per share on sales
of $2.06 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
MARGIN HORSEPOWER
Results were boosted by growing sales of high-powered
tractors as well as the company’s acquisition last year of GSI
Holdings, a maker of silos used to store grain. Those two
businesses command higher profit margins than some of Agco’s
other operations, said Adam Fleck, an analyst with Morningstar
in Chicago.
“If you look at the North American results, with almost a 9
percent operating margin, that’s the strongest that they’ve put
up on a quarterly level in recent memory,” Fleck said. “It seems
like they could be taking some market share in high-horsepower
tractors, and those are some high-margin products.”
The Duluth, Georgia-based company got its biggest boost in
North America, where sales rose 57.6 percent to $566.5 million.
Sales in its largest market — Europe, the Middle East and
Africa — rose 23.3 percent to $1.2 billion.
The company said it now looks for full-year earnings of
about $5.50 per share, up from its earlier forecast of $5.00.
Agco’s rivals include Deere & Co and CNH Global
. CNH last week reported higher-than-expected
first-quarter profit, helped by a 22 percent surge in sales.
Deere is due to report results for its just-ended second
fiscal quarter later this month. Analysts have forecast 19
percent profit growth.
As of Monday’s close, Agco shares had slid 18 percent over
the past year, a steeper slide than the 3 percent decline of the
Standard & Poor’s capital goods industry index.
A Federal Reserve report released on Monday showed that
loans to farmers, which help finance equipment purchases, rose
26 percent in the first quarter.
