Demand for Exmark mowers like the one seen here, as well as for Toro-branded equipment for landscape contractors, helped drive Toro’s strong growth, the company’s CEO says.Photo: Exmark Manufacturing
Toro says “favorable summer growing conditions” helped the company deliver record results for its fiscal third quarter, which ended July 31, 2015. Net earnings totaled $53.3 million, or 94 cents a share, up from $50 million, or 87 cents per share, in the same period last year. Net sales for the third quarter of this year rose 7.4 percent to $609.6 million.
Michael J. Hoffman, Toro’s chairman and chief executive officer, attributed the solid growth to the company’s recent acquisition of the Boss line of snow and ice management products “as well as ongoing demand for our Toro and Exmark-branded landscape contractor equipment.”
Toro also saw “strong growth” in its specialty construction business. Sales in its residential segment remained consistent, Hoffman said, driven by “solid worldwide demand for zero-turn riding mowers and domestic demand for walk power mowers.”
For the nine months ended July 31, Toro’s net sales are up 8.6 percent over the first three quarters of 2014.
“Now in our fourth quarter, we are encouraged by the strong retail sales results we are seeing across our businesses,” Hoffman said. “We will manage the impacts of unfavorable foreign currency rate conditions, which are expected to continue, as well as the extended drought-like conditions in certain regions of the country. We are seeing solid fourth quarter demand for residential and professional snow and ice management products on the heels of a strong snow season in North America in fiscal 2014.”
