Skyjack forecasts “exceptional” growth for ‘22

Linamar Corp., parent company of Skyjack, released its full year and Q4 2021 results ending Dec. 31, 2021, with Skyjack experiencing “exceptional growth over the prior year” for both the fourth quarter and full year.

Skyjack’s growth was enhanced by market share gains across its boom, scissor lift and telehandler lines, Linamar said, and paired with a robust backlog seven times greater than the previous year’s, Linamar expects Skyjack to see double-digit sales this year.

Speaking during an investors call on March 9, Linamar CEO Linda Hasenfratz said, “Equipment utilization levels continue to look positive on average within 3.5 percentage points of the utilization levels that we saw in 2019 and 1.5 percentage points higher than the utilization levels we saw in 2020.”

Hasenfratz continued by noting global access markets continue to show signs of recovery, with North America’s access market up 65% for the year compared to last year, EMEA up 66% for the full year and Asian access markets up 116% for 2021. Linamar expects 2022 to be another double-digit growth year for access, forecasting North American growth of 27%, Europe at 16.9% and Asia at 12.2%.

Despite Skyjack’s increases, Linamar’s overall industrial division (which consists of Skyjack and MacDon) saw sales decrease by -7.2% or $22.6 million to $293 million in Q4. The sales decrease for the quarter was due to lower agricultural sales (MacDon) due to supply cost issues impacting Linamar’s ability to produce and deliver products. These were partially offset by higher access equipment sales driven by market share gains in North America for all three of Skyjakc’s product segments.

Supply chain disruptions including shipping container shortages and higher commodity prices continued to negatively impact production, shipments and costs in 2021, Linamar reported, and the labor shortage is also impacting operations.

“We are seeing a real shortage in availability of labor at the moment,” Hasenfratz said. “The issue is twofold: lack of availability of people largely and normal turnover…, although we have seen that level off in our own facilities in recent months.

“I’ll note, as well, this is a North American issue, not a global one, and definitely worse in the U.S. than in Canada. This put pressure on cost of course, both in terms of wage inflation, but also in terms of higher recruiting and retraining costs. Unfortunately, wage inflation is not something that will be considered but we are hopeful as more people come back to the labor market.”

Despite the challenges, Linamar is still expecting double-digit growth on the top line and in earnings per share in 2022, driven by double-digit growth at both Skyjack and MacDon and launches in the company’s growing mobility market.

“Ag and access will see sales up from seasonal lows in Q4 and flat to up over prior year,” the company said.