Spartan Motors has reported a market-bucking third quarter with a nearly 60% year on year increase in revenue and a greater than five-fold increase in net earnings.
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The custom chassis and specialist vehicles group reported Q3 net earnings of US$14.7m, or $0.45 per share, on net sales of $237.5m, compared with $2.6m, or $0.08 per share, on net sales of $148.9m a year ago.
In the first nine months of 2008, Spartan’s sales increased 57.1% and net earnings grew 144.6%.
The company posted net earnings of $1.22 per share compared with $0.50 in 2007.
“This was an excellent quarter for Spartan, especially given the tumultuous national economic environment,” said president and CEO John Sztykiel. “Our market diversification and flexible manufacturing model continue to allow us to grow and profitably compete in difficult times. During the quarter, we ramped up production rapidly and efficiently to complete a sizeable military order.
“Our military role is evolving from a rapid production and deployment stage to a long-term sustainment and partnership model, marked by smaller volumes of a wider range of mine-protected variants. Emergency-rescue continues to be a great foundation with tremendous opportunity, and we are focused on growing our success via new product launches, conquering the emissions change in 2010, and capitalising on the continued disarray among some of our competitors in the industry. Our service, parts and accessories business is growing across our three core markets.
“We are taking proactive steps to control our cost structure where markets dictate, though we are also positioned to take advantage of our opportunities for growth. Though economic turmoil is a concern for everyone, we are very pleased with our 2008 results. Looking ahead to the next two to three quarters, conditions will be difficult for the best of companies. As a company, we have been through uncertain times before, such as in 1991 and 2001, and each time we emerged even stronger. I expect this time will be no different.”
