Manitou: Strange price movement
Full year results 2024
Short description
The French company Manitou is a global market leader in the production and sale of specialized machinery, such as aerial work platforms, forklifts, excavators, cranes, telehandlers, and pallet trucks. Its main sectors of operation are construction, agriculture, and industry. Its robust all-terrain forklifts, invented by Marcel Braud in 1958, are perhaps its most well-known products.
I could list and describe all the products, but a picture is worth a thousand words. This image also immediately illustrates Manitou’s position in the market for various types of machinery.
Sales of these products account for 86% of the company’s revenue and are simply referred to as the Product Division. The second division, Services and Solutions, provides after-sales services such as spare parts and financial solutions.
Notably, Manitou also offers connectivity solutions for its machines, allowing customers to monitor performance and schedule maintenance to ensure optimal use.
Additionally, this division covers used machinery, training programs, and maintenance technicians.
Why we selected Manitou
This is what we wrote when presenting Manitou at the end of September 2024:
Manitou had previously been part of our selection. In 2017, we held the stock for only eight months—a short period, but I didn’t want to pass up the 53% gain. Back then, we bought in at €20.70. Today, Manitou is bigger, stronger, and more profitable. The share price is currently around €17, following a record year. The number of outstanding shares has remained the same, allowing for a fair comparison.
In other words, the market expects Manitou to shrink significantly in the coming years and become smaller than it was in 2017, when we sold at €31.40 and the stock peaked at €37.95 in mid-2018.
Since then, Manitou has navigated the COVID crisis profitably and continued to grow with new product lines and factories, all while reducing its debt ratio.
However, we must be aware that with Manitou, we are likely buying a company at the peak of its cycle. In the coming months and years, we will probably see weaker numbers.
In January, the market initially reacted positively to the trading update, pushing the stock up 10% in a single day just before the annual results were published. However, on the day of publication, the stock dropped 20%. The stock market remains unpredictable, but we should take a rational approach—assessing whether the results are still in line with our expectations or if it would be wiser to lock in our 15% gain from the past few months.