Caterpillar announces Q4 losses

Caterpillar has announced 2015 fourth quarter revenues of US$ 11 billion – a decrease of almost 30% from the same period in 2014.

The company said the past year was a difficult one for many of the industries and customers it serves. It also reported a loss of US$ 0.15 per share for the fourth quarter of 2015, down from a profit of US$ 1.23 per share for the same period a year earlier.

Excluding restructuring costs, profit per share was US$ 0.74, compared with $1.35 per share in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Doug Oberhelman, chairman and CEO of Caterpillar, said, “Cost management, restructuring actions and operational execution are helping the company, while sales and revenues remain under pressure from weak commodity prices and slowing economic growth in developing countries.

“We took tough but necessary restructuring actions in 2015 – and they were significant.”

He added that he was proud of his team for staying focused on its customers in the difficult environment.

The company said 2015 was a “difficult year”, where sales and revenues were nearly 15% lower than 2014, and 29% lower than 2012. It said the two most significant reasons for the decline from 2014 were weakening economic growth and substantially lower commodity prices.

Caterpillar has also said in its outlook for 2016 sales and revenues, it “does not anticipate improvement in world economic growth or commodity prices”.

Its sales and revenues are expected to be in the range of US$ 40 billion to US$ 44 billion. The mid-point range of US$ 42 billion reflects a decline of about US$ 3.5 billion from its estimates in October 2015 for 2016 sales and revenues, and a year-on-year decline of about 10%.

The decrease from last October’s preliminary outlook is said to be a result of continued declines in commodity prices and economic weakness in developing countries.