Astec Industries boosted its sales from its recent acquisition in the second quarter and more than doubled its backlog of orders, but the adjusted net income per share for the Chattanooga-based road building equipment maker fell nearly 27% from a year ago.
Astec reported net income in the three months ended June 30 of $9 million, or 39 cents per share, on sales of $278 million. Adjusted earnings per share totaled 49 cents per share, which matched the Zacks Consensus estimate of what earnings would be for the quarter.
Astec’s backlog of orders at the end of the fiscal quarter remained strong and were up nearly 140% from a year ago to $436.1 million. Astec CEO Barry Ruffalo said the company has added 240 employees across the company in the past year and is trying to add more to meet the growing backlog of orders.
Astec has more than 1,300 employees in Chattanooga, but finding and keeping enough labor remains a challenge, especially as road building activity grows and is projected to increase even more if the infrastructure package moving through Congress is approved.
“In certain manufacturing locations, we have experienced a shortage of necessary production personnel and increasing labor costs to attract staff in our manufacturing operations,” said Steve Anderson, a senior vice president for Astec. “This resulted in a variety of challenges in running our operations efficiently as well as meeting manufacturing demand.”