Crane Co, a provider of products and services to sectors including cash handling in the casino industry, reported net income of US$116.6 million for the third quarter of 2021, up 106.0 percent from the prior-year period. The result was however down 15.7 percent from the preceding quarter.
Group-wide net sales rose by 21.4 percent year-on-year, to US$833.5 million, Crane Co said in a Monday filing in the United States.
Quarterly net sales for payment and merchandising technologies – including casino cash handling – grew by 32.0 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2021, to US$365.8 million. The figure was also up 11.5 percent from the second quarter this year.
Operating profit in that segment more than doubled, to US$83.7 million from US$40.5 million in the third quarter of 2020. Group-wide operating profit was US$138.2 million in the three months to September 30 this year, up 82.1 percent from a year earlier.
The group’s main business segments aside from payment and merchandising technologies, are aerospace and electronics, and process flow technologies. Crane Co’s results for most of 2020 had been negatively impacted by factors linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, said the firm at the time.
The group confirmed a regular quarterly dividend for the fourth quarter – amounting to US$0.43 per share – on the day it announced its third quarter results.
Max Mitchell, Crane Co president and chief executive, stated in prepared remarks with the results: “We delivered extremely strong results in the third quarter with record earnings per share. Performance was outstanding across all of our businesses, and we were able to achieve 20 percent core year-over-year sales growth and high-teens adjusted operating margins even in the face of continued inflationary pressures and ongoing supply chain challenges.”
The company also said it had raised the midpoint of its adjusted earnings per share guidance for full-year 2021 by US$0.35, to a range of US$6.35 to US$6.45, “reflecting an approximate 80percent year-over-year increase.”
In July, Crane Co signed a new US$650-million, five-year revolving credit agreement, which replaced a US$550 million revolving credit facility, dated December 2017.
On Monday, the company announced that its board had approved a US$300 million share repurchase authorisation. Crane Co’s chief financial officer, Rich Maue, said the exercise was “attractive at this time given very high confidence in our medium- and long-term outlook.”
