Wabash National Corp. has announced its 1Q 2006 profits dropped to $4.3 million compared to $18.5 million for 1Q 2005. This 76.7% dent on margins came despite a slight 2.3% increase in revenues to $262.1 million for 1Q 2006.
“These challenges included sales volumes being constrained by an unusually high percentage of customer equipment pickup delays (vs. factory deliveries), margin compression resulting from competitive pricing and higher raw materials costs,” stated Bill Greubel, Wabash CEO. “Also, during the quarter we made the decision to withdraw from the intermodal container market and completed all production by the end of the quarter.”
The acquisition of Transcraft, completed March 3, 2006, added $2.7 million to sales in the quarter. The company said its new trailer unit sales were 11,700 compared to 11,200 in the first quarter of 2005. The backlog as of March 31 amounted to approximately $610 million, including $42 million related to Transcraft.
