Manitowoc Q1 2026 Earnings Results & Report

Manitowoc EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.13
• Consensus EPS: $0.0445
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.1745
• One Year Ago EPS: -$0.16
• EPS Beat Rate: 2 of last 8 quarters

Manitowoc Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $494.60 million
• Expected Revenue: $517 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$22.40 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +5.00%

Manitowoc (NYSE:MTW) designs, manufactures and supports lifting equipment for construction and other industries. Its products include mobile hydraulic cranes, crawler cranes, tower cranes and boom trucks, along with replacement parts and aftermarket services.

The company sells equipment under brands including Grove, Manitowoc, Potain and National Crane. Its products and services support customers in markets around the world, including the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific.

Manitowoc traces its roots to a shipbuilding business established in Wisconsin in 1902 and began producing cranes in the 1920s. Today, it focuses on crane manufacturing and related customer support.

Manitowoc Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Orders remained strong at approximately $646 million in Q1 with backlog up to $940 million, and April orders running higher at an estimated $225–$250 million, supporting near-term revenue visibility.
• Positive Sentiment: The CRANES+50 strategy is driving higher-margin recurring revenue: non-new machine sales grew 3% in the quarter and reached a trailing-12-month record of $696 million, while field service headcount and ServiceMax deployment were expanded to capture more aftermarket revenue.
• Negative Sentiment: Adjusted EBITDA fell 10% to $20 million while tariffs and higher inventory increased net working capital by $47 million year-over-year, and the company disclosed paying roughly $25 million in IEEPA with refund and Section 232 review uncertainty remaining.
• Positive Sentiment: Cash generation improved (operating cash flow $27 million, free cash flow $19 million), ending liquidity was $316 million, net leverage 3.1x, and S&P upgraded the credit rating to B+, underscoring a stronger financial profile.
• Positive Sentiment: Product and operational initiatives continued—new product unveilings (including an 800-ton 8-axle crane slated for 2027) and The Manitowoc Way lean improvements (safety and efficiency gains) aim to support long-term margin expansion and competitiveness.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and welcome to The Manitowoc Company, Inc. first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please contact the conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw a question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ion Warner, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Ion Warner, SVP of Marketing and Investor Relations at The Manitowoc Company]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our earnings call to review the company's first quarter 2026 financial performance and business update as outlined in last evening's press release. Joining me this morning with prepared remarks are Aaron Ravenscroft, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Regan, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this morning, we posted our slide presentation to the investor relations section of our website, www.manitowoc.com, which you can use to follow along with our prepared remarks. Please turn to slide two. Before we start, please note our safe harbor statement in the material provided for this call. During today's call, forward-looking statements, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, are made based on the company's current assessment of its markets and other factors that affect its business.

[Ion Warner, SVP of Marketing and Investor Relations at The Manitowoc Company]

However, actual results could differ materially from any implied or actual projections due to one or more of the factors, among others, described in the company's latest SEC filings. The Manitowoc Company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether the result of new information, future events, or other circumstances. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Aaron.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

Thank you, Ion. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to take a moment to thank the Manitowoc team for their unwavering commitment to serving our stakeholders. Over the last 12 months, the team has continued to execute our CRANES+50 strategy, enabling us to weather the downturn in the crane cycle and be better positioned for the next leg up. Although there is a great deal of uncertainty in the Middle East, Ukraine, and even in the United States with respect to tariffs, the overall market has been resilient. Our orders during the first quarter were almost $650 million, and our backlog ended the period at $940 million. In addition, order rates in April remain strong. Please turn to slide three.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

Starting with The Manitowoc Way, I recently challenged our organization to eliminate hammers, similar to what we did with ladders a few years ago. We are simply too reliant on hammers. They create quality problems and are a major source for safety risk. In our Shady Grove plant alone, we had over 1,200 hammers in use. Thus far, we've eliminated 264. As you can see on the slide, the organization has quickly developed a variety of improvements, ranging from simple to ingenious solutions. Eliminating hammers not only helps create a safer workplace, also supports The Manitowoc Way culture as we consistently drive for continuous improvement and innovation. Ultimately, our goal is to have zero injuries. In terms of new product development, in March, we unveiled an 80-ton boom truck and an 800-ton eight-axle all-terrain crane at CONEXPO.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

Both received outstanding feedback from customers and crane operators. The eight-axle crane was a real head turner at the show. I really look forward to getting the first units into the field in 2027. Please move to slide four. Turning to our CRANES+50 strategy, our non-new machine sales for the quarter grew 3% year-over-year. On a trailing 12-month basis, we improved 8% to $696 million. Growing this part of our business, which is less impacted by economic cycles and produces higher returns, is a key part of our strategic plan and is working well. As I preach to our teams, for us to continuously grow our non-new machine sales, we have to focus on four major buckets. Number one, we are adding more service locations.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

For example, in Australia, we doubled the capacity of our Sydney facility. We recently approved new service centers in Brisbane and Melbourne. Brisbane will host the 2032 Olympics. We're preparing for a lot of activity in the region. Number two, we are adding more aftermarket sales representatives and field service techs. We ended the first quarter with 567 field service techs, up 50 techs in just three months. The growth was driven by two major actions. First, we reorganized our approach to talent acquisition in North America by enhancing our recruiting team. Second, in India, we transitioned from a dealer model to a direct model in order to better service our customers. The third bucket, we are increasing sales of complementary lifting accessories.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

In Europe, our tower crane team has introduced anti-intrusion panels to reduce theft and to discourage curious social media influencers during the off-hours. In addition, the team has introduced urinals to replace the less than desirable traditional bucket system. In the U.K., our mobile team has started selling outrigger pads and a rear-mounted storage compartment, which they designed in-house. Our goal is straightforward. We want to make our customers' lives easier so they can focus on executing lifts. The fourth bucket is the fact that we are leveraging technology. I mentioned our implementation of ServiceMax a few times. This tool has several different modules to help us better track machines and more effectively fix and bill crane repairs. In April, we completed the implementation of ServiceMax Asset Management System.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

We are now onto the development of the dispatching and work order module, which increases our visibility to service work and enables us to capture more incremental revenue opportunities. Please move to slide five. For my regional update, let's start with the Americas. First and foremost, overall customer sentiment at CONEXPO was very positive. Crane rental houses were quite optimistic about the market outlook. While everyone is unhappy with tariffs, customers told us project work is abundant. In addition, dealer inventory levels declined during the first quarter, which is a great sign that folks are buying again. For example, all-terrain crane inventory levels are at a 10-year low. In Europe, the crane business feels pretty good. Demand for tower cranes continues to grow with new machine orders up 76% year-over-year, and mobile demand has remained relatively steady.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

In the Middle East, many big projects like the new Dubai Airport continue to move forward. Not surprisingly, Saudi Arabia has pulled back on Neom and Trojena, considerable development activity remains underway in Riyadh. Given the circumstances around the Iran conflict, we find ourselves in a wait and see mode as we monitor the situation. I am very encouraged by the level of optimism in the region, with construction companies eager to get back to business. Finally, Asia Pacific continues to gain momentum, with increasing demand in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Australia, and South Korea. I recently visited the new SK hynix and Samsung semiconductor projects, where roughly 100 Potain tower cranes are currently operating. Korean construction companies continue to leave me in awe of their scale and speed. The Samsung site alone will reach 70,000 workers at its peak.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

I left South Korea very optimistic about demand in the coming quarters. With that, I'll hand it over to Brian to walk you through the financials before I make a few closing remarks.

[Brian Regan, EVP and CFO at The Manitowoc Company]

Thanks, Aaron. Good morning, everyone. Please turn to slide six. Our financial performance for the quarter tracked largely in line with expectations, which supports reaffirming our previously issued guidance. We anticipated difficult comps as tariffs were a headwind to the quarter versus the prior year. The tariffs introduced in 2025 didn't fully impact us until the second half of the year. Moving to the numbers, we had orders of $646 million in the first quarter, relatively flat from a year ago on a currency-neutral basis. Order activity was solid and broadly consistent with recent trends. Keep in mind, order comps were difficult in Q1 due to the post-election bump in 2025 and the large stocking orders we received at the end of the year.

[Brian Regan, EVP and CFO at The Manitowoc Company]

Backlog ended the quarter at a strong $940 million, up $146 million from where we exited 2025 and up $142 million year-over-year. This supports our revenue expectations for the full year. Net sales in the quarter were $495 million, essentially flat on a currency-neutral basis. non-new machine sales in the quarter were $166 million, and on a trailing 12-month basis reached a record $696 million, up 8% from the prior year. While growth lagged our expectations in the first quarter, mainly due to used sales, the overall mix of non-new machine sales favored our higher margin categories. SG&A expenses were $91 million in the quarter.

[Brian Regan, EVP and CFO at The Manitowoc Company]

On an adjusted basis, SG&A was up $7 million, with foreign currency accounting for $3 million of the increase. The remaining increase was driven primarily by the CONEXPO trade show and inflation from other employee-related costs. Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was $20 million, down $2 million or 10% year-over-year. As expected, tariffs impacted our results by $2 million. Please turn to slide seven. Net working capital ended the quarter at $536 million, an increase of $47 million year-over-year, driven primarily by inventory. The higher year-over-year inventory was driven by $26 million from foreign currency, $15 million from tariffs, and $10 million in prototypes, and was partially offset by operational improvements. Moving to cash flow, operating activities provided $27 million of cash during the quarter.

[Brian Regan, EVP and CFO at The Manitowoc Company]

Capital expenditures were $8 million, including $6 million for our rental fleet, resulting in free cash flow of $19 million. This was a $17 million improvement year-over-year, driven by increased collections on accounts receivables. We ended the quarter with $316 million in liquidity, and our net leverage ratio was 3.1x. In April, S&P upgraded our corporate credit rating from B to B+. This upgrade underscores the progress we are making in strengthening our financial profile through the cycle while investing in long-term growth through our CRANES+50 strategy.

[Brian Regan, EVP and CFO at The Manitowoc Company]

Looking ahead, first quarter results didn't change our expectations for the full year, and as such, we are affirming our previously issued guidance of net sales of $2.25 billion-$2.35 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $125 million-$150 million. With that, I'll turn the call back to Aaron.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

Thank you, Brian. Please turn to slide eight. Standing back and looking at the forest through the trees, I think there are many reasons to be optimistic. Number one, Europe is on the rebound. For sure, towers has rebounded more aggressively than mobiles, and there's still a big need for residential housing and power generation. Number two, in the Middle East, all things considered, folks are pretty optimistic to get back on track. In normal times, all construction would have dried up overnight with such regional conflict. Number three, in Asia, our strongest markets are pumping even in the face of weaker currencies. Number four, in LATAM, copper is traded above $6 per pound. With several new governments in the region, I believe we'll start to see more investments in brownfield and greenfield mining projects.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

Number five, in the U.S., although fleet ages continue to increase, customers are begrudgingly making purchases. Data centers continue to expand rapidly, and there is a strong need for additional power generation and transmission infrastructure. Finally, number six, the success of our CRANES+50 strategy is increasingly helping us weather this economic cycle and positioning us for a higher margin profile in the long term. Of course, there is still a lot of uncertainty in the market, I believe that we are starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. Keep in mind, we've been living in this mode essentially since 2020. There's plenty of pent-up ambition from folks to renew and expand their businesses, which is why I believe that the markets have held up steady. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator]

Yes, thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using speakerphone, please lift your handset before pressing the keys. If you have a question you'd like to withdraw, please press star and two. This time we'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster. The first question comes from Jerry Revich from Wells Fargo.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

Morning, Jerry.

[Brian Regan, EVP and CFO at The Manitowoc Company]

Hi, good morning.

[Kevin Uherek, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

This is Kevin on for Jerry. Just had a question on the changing tariff dynamics as it relates to your outlook. Would be helpful to get more color on that, maybe bifurcating between impacts from the IEEPA overturn and the new Section 232 ruling.

[Brian Regan, EVP and CFO at The Manitowoc Company]

Yep. Thanks, Kevin. A lot is going on with the tariff landscape as you can imagine. I'll start by saying that the net go forward impact of what is in place today is in line with what we thought coming into the year. No real changes to our expectations based on those changes. With that said, there's still uncertainty regarding what Section 301 country by country tariffs will be and what net effect they'll have on us versus the Section 232 current tariffs. Related to IEEPA, we did file our refund through the CAPE process. We did pay approximately $25 million in IEEPA, we're in a wait and see mode as far as that process goes.

[Brian Regan, EVP and CFO at The Manitowoc Company]

Additionally, you'll see in our Q, we voluntarily submitted a prior disclosure to customs related to potential errors in our methodology in calculating the Section 232 steel and steel derivative tariffs. This will allow us to review our calculation to determine if any adjustments required. To give some perspective, we paid approximately $18 million prior to the April change in the Section 232 tariffs.

[Kevin Uherek, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Got it. Very helpful. Given that 2Q is typically a seasonally strong quarter for both a net sales and margin perspective, how should we think about performance versus normal seasonality? Any one-time impacts we should be thinking about from 1Q?

[Brian Regan, EVP and CFO at The Manitowoc Company]

I said in the prepared remarks that, you know, we still from a comp standpoint, the second half is gonna look better just because of the impact of the tariffs. They really hit us for more in the second half than the first half. With that said, you know, I think we talked about restructuring in our plan, and that's still in place. Again, that's gonna affect us more favorably in the second half. You know, as I think Q2 will be better than Q1, but I think the second half is gonna be better than the first half.

[Kevin Uherek, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Understood. Thank you. That's all I have for questions.

[Brian Regan, EVP and CFO at The Manitowoc Company]

Thanks, Kevin.

[Ion Warner, SVP of Marketing and Investor Relations at The Manitowoc Company]

We received several calls this morning, and I'd like to read them to you. The first question that I received online was: Could you provide more color on these lifting accessories as part of your CRANES+50 strategy?

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

Yeah. The analogy that I use with our team internally is that the crane business is a lot like a restaurant. When you think about the restaurant, it's the steak that brings us all to the restaurant. It's that main platter. The reality is, the restaurant is living off of the appetizers, the desserts, and the wines. I think that the crane business is exactly the same to that. I mean, obviously, you gotta have a great crane to be in the lifting business, there's a lot of accessories that go around that product and really add value to our business and to our customers. You know, I think what really brings it all home is great service. A great example of that recently, we got an order in France for seven tower cranes.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

That was for EUR 6.5 million. On the back of that, the sales team was able to add the commissioning and dismantling services for EUR 900,000, and then several accessories for a total of EUR 300,000. On top of your normal crane order, they added anti-intrusion panels, lighting cameras, anti-collision software, aircraft warning systems, and lifts. I think to me, that's a great example of what the team can add when they really start to think outside of the box and have a bigger view of the customer and how we service those customers. Hopefully, that's a little color that helps.

[Ion Warner, SVP of Marketing and Investor Relations at The Manitowoc Company]

Okay, thanks. We received another email. What are your orders in April?

[Brian Regan, EVP and CFO at The Manitowoc Company]

Yeah. Aaron mentioned that the orders were strong. We're still rolling up the numbers, but we expect between $225 million and $250 million of orders in April, which was good. A little bit higher than the run rate we saw in Q1.

[Ion Warner, SVP of Marketing and Investor Relations at The Manitowoc Company]

Okay. I just received this email. You seem more optimistic on this call. How do we think about the full year guidance?

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

Yeah. We reaffirmed our guidance, but, you know, you look at it, orders have been strong. April, as Brian just said, is looking good. Backlog strong. Dealer inventory is on the low end in the U.S., and we're really starting to see some momentum in places like South Korea. I think there's a lot of optimism out there, a lot of opportunity. I think the big question mark is just how the Strait of Hormuz situation plays out, 'cause we still have plenty of orders that need to make their way into the Middle East through that strait, and as of right now, it's shut down. I think there's some good opportunities, but still there's some uncertainty there in terms of our ability to execute within the year, depending on how that situation plays out.

[Ion Warner, SVP of Marketing and Investor Relations at The Manitowoc Company]

I received another email. I'll just read it to you. How's the implementation of The Manitowoc Way lean practices impacting the aftermarket business?

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

Yeah. I mean, traditionally we're manufacturing folks, so we're still sort of figuring it out, and I think we're in the early innings, but we're starting to see some good gains. I think when you look at what we did in terms of our new hires of field service folks during the quarter, that's a good example of how we're gaining. We've continued to sort of tweak how our approach to recruiting and how we manage the organization. I think we, you know, it looks like we've found the right formula. I think that's a real success of us trying to continuously do a better job and be more effective at it. We got some good Kaizen going this year. They're more than just sort of the week Kaizen. It'll take us, you know, a few weeks to work through those.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

We do pre-delivery inspections at our dealerships. We've never really gotten good feedback. There's a lot of fixes that happen that people just don't report. We built a system around that to start to get feedback closer to our, to the assemblers and [shading. I think that's gonna yield good results for us. In our Jeffersonville distribution center, this is where we typically ship out parts, but there's a lot of kits that go with EnCORE work and Upfit and some bigger projects. I could best describe that as a terrible IKEA project at the moment. A lot of work for us to do and improve in terms of the kitting, because when we do that's gonna be a significant productivity gain at our service centers when they're doing that work.

[Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO at The Manitowoc Company]

Because it's hard to figure out all the different nuts and bolts and parts that are in some of these boxes. I think that's great. Then a big shout-out to our team in Chesapeake, Meghan Gowder. She's done a fantastic job. She was a The Manitowoc Way winner last year for improvements, and in the first quarter she put forward a improvement around using QR codes to manage TPM on forklifts. I just love the amount of creativity we have in those locations. To me, the big challenge and why I see we're in the early innings is just around how we collaborate and we share all these lessons learned. You know, it's a lot of cats to herd in all these different locations, but we're gaining speed.

[Ion Warner, SVP of Marketing and Investor Relations at The Manitowoc Company]

I'm really looking forward to what we're able to do as we move forward. Thank you. Those are the questions that we received in the queue. Operator, any other questions in the queue?

[Operator]

No, sir. There is nothing at present.

[Ion Warner, SVP of Marketing and Investor Relations at The Manitowoc Company]

Okay. Very well. Please note that a replay of our first quarter 2026 earnings call will be available later this morning by accessing the investor relations section of our website at manitowoc.com. Thank you everyone for joining us today and for your continued interest in The Manitowoc Company. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter.

[Operator]

Thank you. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.

Participants

Executives

• Aaron Ravenscroft, President and CEO
• Brian Regan, EVP and CFO
• Ion Warner, SVP of Marketing and Investor Relations

Analysts

• Kevin Uherek, Analyst at Wells Fargo