Crane Reduces Full-year Outlook due to Drop in Earnings

Australia based Crane Group Limited (CRG), a company that concentrates in the manufacture and distribution of copper tube, copper alloy rod, aluminium extrusions, bar extrusions and plumbing supplies have reduced its full-year outlook on Monday after it was reveled that the first-half earnings of the company was almost halved with key water projects in Australia drying up. The recent declaration of Crane is being considered as an indication that economic recovery of the country is still to flow to all the sectors and the situation can remain like this for some time. The Crane authority stated that trading conditions can remain subdued across the major housing and infrastructure markets of the company. It is to be mentioned that Crane Group has restructured its electrical supplies and plumbing operations in Australia and New Zealand over the last one and a half year.

Crane took steps to boost efficiency and reduce cost but stated that the economic recovery in Australia and New Zealand in the recent months was not flowing in some of its major markets. According to Greg Sedgwick, the managing director of the company, two out of three sectors are performing well. However, the water (pipeline) and civilian projects were still to recover. According to Crane, which produces plastic pipeline systems and nonferrous metal products, its plastic division was negatively effected due to the market slowdown. The company saw its sales dropping to 35 percent while earnings fell by 60 percent due to a less number of key water and civil infrastructure projects.

The Crane Managing Director stated that for water-saving projects, the federal government had allocated around $3.7 billion across the major irrigation regions of Australia. However, these projects are not becoming ready to shovel as swiftly as they used to be. He also added that, some other areas like Victorian, NSW and South Australia were still in need of irrigation water infrastructure in order to save water from evaporating.