February 9, 2010
Trinity Industries, largest of North America’s railcar makers and a large supplier of wind energy towers and barges, did half the business it did a year earlier in the third quarter.
Trinity said total revenue fell 52 percent to $577 million from the 2008 period. Its net income fell 74 percent to $23.2 million, but that was an improvement from the second quarter’s loss of $209.4 million when the company wrote down the value of its rail business.
Chairman, President and CEO Timothy R. Wallace said Trinity also bolstered its balance sheet in the past three months. It ended the July-September quarter with unrestricted cash of $545.4 million, up from $440.9 million at the end of June.
“Our businesses remained highly focused on obtaining orders that extend their production lines and reducing costs as they right-sized their capacity,” Wallace said.
Trinity’s railcar manufacturing unit shipped 1,630 units in the latest quarter and took new orders for about 1,000. It ended the period with an order backlog of 3,160 cars worth $264 million.
In the second quarter, which included the weakest period of the recession for rail freight traffic, TrinityRail had shipped about 3,080 cars, taken orders for 650 new ones and ended with a backlog valued around $326 million.
Railcar building remained its largest business segment in the third quarter with $166 million in sales. But that was down 78 percent from the 2008 quarter and produced an operating loss of $12 million. The separate rail leasing unit took in $81.5 million, which was also down a sharp 61 percent, but it contributed a $30 million profit.
The barge, energy (wind) and construction products groups all saw sales fall as well, but made money on their operations. The wind tower backlog at Sept. 30 was $1.1 billion, down moderately from the end of June. An influx of third-quarter barge orders valued at $110 million kept the backlog value at $350 million, as when the second quarter ended.
Contact John D. Boyd at jboyd@joc.com.
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