Austin Engineering is guiding for growth and increased earnings in FY2025 after delivering a 135% uplift in latest-year EBITDA to A$47.7 million on 21% higher revenue of $313.2 million.
The Australian-based equipment manufacturer said its dump-truck tray and loader bucket sales increased across its core Asia Pacific and North and South America markets in FY24, accounting for 71.3% of sales. Its order book was up 30% year-on-year at the end of June this year at $187 million.
“Our order book has been growing on average 44% per annum since we implemented Austin 2.0 in 2021,” said CEO David Singleton.
“This is due to a combination of Austin building its product range and increasing the size and manufacturing capacity of our facilities across all business units.”
Austin Engineering is guiding for FY25 revenue of circa-$350 million and underlying EBIT of c$50m, up 30% on $38.6m in FY24.
It finished FY24 with net cash of $9.6m versus net debt of $14.1m at the end of FY23.
“With its strengthening balance sheet, Austin has improved its ability to invest in the business for capacity and efficiency improvement to meet the organic growth we have seen across the group,” the company said this week.
“Austin continues to assess potential strategic M&A opportunities to improve its geographic capabilities, customer offerings, production capacity and product footprint and continue to leverage its economies of scale.
“There are currently no opportunities that Austin considers are sufficiently advanced to warrant disclosure at this time.”
Austin booked net profit of $29.7m for FY24, up 318% yoy. EBITDA margins increased to 15.2% in the latest year compared with 7.9% in FY23.
“Our improved financial performance has been driven by a series of initiatives designed to enhance operating efficiencies and lower costs across our business units, which has led to a continued growth in margins,” Singleton said.
“Customer focus has been a business priority for Austin in FY24.
“We’ve invested in increasing the size of our sales and product support function and added a central marketing capability. This has helped us to end the financial year with a 30% year-on-year increase in our order book, which we expect will drive further revenue growth as we move into the new financial year.
“The cost benefits of our AustBuy bulk procurement program, which leverages our scale in this critical area of cost, has positively impacted our FY24 results, and is a development that will grow in the new financial year as it increases its geographic impact and brings its purchasing power to more areas of our business.
“Collectively, these initiatives have seen EBITDA margins continue to improve, ending the year at a statutory 15.2%.
“Our bucket segment continues to develop as we previously predicted. Bucket product and services revenues are at multi-year highs for Austin, with a 43% year-on-year increase recorded in Australia, where the initial emphasis has been. This has driven an overall 13% improvement across the group.
“The development of the mining bucket segment continues to represent a growth area in Australia but increasingly in the Americas as well.”
