Caterpillar’s third-quarter earnings report that came out Tuesday, comes with information that often doesn’t get much attention after the basic numbers. The company’s outlook includes preliminary financial considerations for 2017.
Mike DeWalt is the corporate controller and director of investor relations for Caterpillar. He says they don’t talk much about profit at this point, but try to keep focus sales potential.
“From a sales standpoint next year, I would say we’re a bit negative on the first half of the year and cautiously optimistic that if the commodity trend continues, that it could be positive for the second half of the year.” DeWalt says, “We’re concerned about North American Construction. We haven’t had an order pick up yet in oil and gas or mining. So that’s probably not good for the first half of the year. It will probably make the first half of the year more challenging.”
But DeWalt says it’s hard enough to predict one quarter ahead, so considerations for next year are still shaping up.
To that end, Caterpillar is looking to wrap-up the year with $800 Million in restructuring costs. That’s $100-Million more than estimated last quarter.
DeWalt says that is more about some additional devalued assets, like deciding to shut down certain product lines, rather than more layoffs and severance. He says one example is Caterpillar has decided to leave the Room and Pillar underground mining equipment business and that constitutes part of the additional restructuring costs.
And in the way of people power: Caterpillar’s global full-time, and flexible workforce is down by 34,200 people since the company’s financial peek four years ago. That’s equivalent to the entire population of Pekin. Caterpillar currently employs 108,800 people across the globe.