Update Middleby (MIDD)
Has Middleby (MIDD) finally moved off the back burner?
Middleby’s shares were up 29% from February 8 through March 5, and the relative strength on the stock has moved to 72 for the last three months from 56 over the last six months. (Relative strength measures how a stock’s price performance compares to all other stocks on the market in the period. A relative strength of 72, for example, means the stock has outperformed 72% of all stock during the period.)
The market was anticipating that orders from the commercial food service industry—everything from fast food restaurants to school lunchroom kitchens—will finally first stabilize and then turn upward in 2010.
The company’s earnings report on March 3 vindicated that anticipation.
Update Middleby (MIDD)
On November 10 Middleby (MIDD) reported third quarter earnings of 83 cents a share, four cents a share better than Wall Street projections, but still 19% down from the third quarter of 2008. Revenue fell 7.5% from the third quarter of 2008. At $154 million revenue was about $10 million below the Wall Street consensus.
If you used a magnifying glass, you could find signs of improvement in the revenue number. In the second quarter of 2009 revenue was down 8.6% from the second quarter of 2008. In the third quarter of 2009 the year-to-year decline was just 7.2%.
And in the earnings number too. Gross margin climbed to 40.3% in the quarter from 38.9% in the third quarter of 2008.
Update Middleby (MIDD)
On August 12 Middleby (MIDD) reported second quarter earnings of 74 cents a share. That was 7 cents a share below Wall Street expectations. Revenue also came in light at $159 million versus the $170 million Wall Street had projected.
Middleby has attempted to keep growing its business by acquiring smaller competitors and targeting potential top tier customers with a new sales team.
That strategy is sound in the long run the company operates in a fragmented industry and many of its competitors in the commercial kitchen equipment/cooking unit business are currently stressed by a combination of tighter lending standards and slower business.
But that long term strategy has short-term costs because the company has to keep on spending even its own revenue comes under pressure in the recession.
