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The Manitowoc Company, Inc. (MTW)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 29, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to this Manitowoc Company Q3 2015 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time for opening remarks and introductions, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Khail. Please go ahead, sir. Steven C. Khail - Director-Investor Relations & Communications: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Manitowoc's third quarter earnings conference call. Participating in today's call will be Ken Krueger, our Interim Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Carl Laurino, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Hubertus Mühlhäuser, President and Chief Executive Officer of Manitowoc Foodservice. Ken will open today's call by providing comments related to our quarterly results and business outlook. Hubertus will then provide a more detailed overview of our Foodservice segments performance and outlook, and Carl will discuss our financial results for the third quarter in greater detail. Following our prepared remarks, we will be joined by Larry Weyers, President of Manitowoc Cranes, for our question-and-answer session. For anyone who is not able to listen to today's entire call, an archived version of this call will be available later this morning. Please visit the Investor Relations section of our corporate website at www.manitowoc.com to access the replay. Before Ken begins his commentary, I would like to review our Safe Harbor statement. This call is taking place on October 29, 2015. During the course of today's call, forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 will be made during each speaker's remarks and during our question-and-answer session. Such statements are based on the company's current assessment of its markets and other factors that affect its business. However, actual results could differ materially from any implied projections due to one or more of the factors explained in Manitowoc's filings…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir. We will take our first question from Jamie Cook of Credit Suisse. Jamie L. Cook - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Hi, good morning. I guess two questions. One, as I think about just given the split in the deterioration we've seen in the Crane business, Ken or Carl, if you could just help me walk through, when I think about the next 12 months, or when I think about 2016, how much benefit do we get from the restructuring actions you announced previously versus today, and versus the new ones you've announced today, because as I look to 2016 based on the orders, it seems like sales are down again, which would imply EBIT is down again, and I mean next year. So again I'm just trying to understand how to think what could be incremental because, again it just questions why we would do the split where the profitability of Cranes would be negligible? And then, Ken, as a board member I would like to just hear your -- why you're comfortable with splitting Cranes today just given the leverage? I mean the prior management team would say profitability of Cranes would never get below prior trough, we're going to be here this year and could go again below that next year. So, just given the leverage, Crane deterioration, profitability below prior trough, why you're comfortable with splitting the company in the first quarter? Thanks. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Thanks, Jamie. As far as the flow through benefit in calendarization, there is probably going to – as we alluded, there is going to be some additional actions that we'll be looking at. But in terms of the identified actions, the greater part, because of the timing of…

Operator

Operator

And next we'll go to Stephen Volkmann with Jefferies.

Stephen Edward Volkmann - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. I'm just going to follow on Jamie's question and ask you just sort of the opposite way. Why not wait and do the spin after you have demonstrated a little bit more of your cost saves and maybe when the market has kind of shown some signs of bottoming and people can make more intelligent decisions about what they think the Crane piece is going to be worth. Is there any cost to you to push this thing out six months or something? I guess I'm just curious why you'd want to do it into the storm here? Kenneth W. Krueger - Interim Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: The spin prices itself as you can imagine is quite an undertaking and the guys have made great progress in a lot of fronts. The tax and the legal work is done and largely in place and the entity restructuring makes it possible to do it. The underlying systems and processes – guys just recently, we're able to prepare financial statements for both of the individual businesses separately, which is a bigger deal, I guess than it sounds like. And we're also able to segment the underlying infrastructure systems. And lastly, the people have been aligned and put into the positions to serve in these businesses. So while the question can be put on timing, I think right now we are staged to do it. I think it's the right thing to do for the company and we're able to do it. Could things change over time? I don't think so, I hope not. But I think, right now, given the momentum we have, given the underlying efforts that are in place and given the projected success of the spin, I think we're sort of on the path to complete it as we had targeted and as we had announced previously. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Yeah.

Stephen Edward Volkmann - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Okay. Great. I'll leave that one then. And maybe for Carl then. I'm curious, I'm having a little bit of trouble kind of getting to your full year interest expense. I guess you're assuming a fair amount of debt paydown in the fourth quarter. But even I think you said something about four times leverage and I was skimming through some of your covenants, I thought they're actually a little lower than that. So I guess, I'm curious about, one, your degree of confidence and kind of meeting that cash goal in the fourth quarter? And two, where we stand relative to covenants? Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Absolutely no issue with covenants as it relates to the interest expense question. One of the expectations as you probably are aware, we get through the non-call period on one of the bonds in actually next month and there is an expectation that as we devote some of the debt pay down to that instrument that there's a benefit that hits the interest expense line, not just from the debt reduction, but also from just the accounting of where you carry the expense. That would benefit as we do the pay downs. So, that's the reconciliation.

Operator

Operator

And next we'll go to Mig Dobre with Baird. Mig Dobre - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Can you maybe remind us of really all the one-time cash and I'm talking cash cost that you will be incurring in the fourth quarter, whether they'd be related to restructuring or separation or whatever else? Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Well, I think kind of the run rate that we've been seeing from a separation cost, we've got a line item on the balance sheet in the third quarter, it was about $10 million, most of that cash, and there wouldn't be a lot more of that that we would expect to see. Mig Dobre - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, a lot of the one-time costs are essentially at closing cost we expect to see in 2016 first quarter. Mig Dobre - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): I see. And then maybe, I don't know, you can kind of bridge the gap for me in terms of how you're thinking about cash flow specifically in the fourth quarter because obviously year-to-date we've seen quite a bit of cash consumption, which I know is seasonally normal, but obviously the business is also behaving quite differently than normal. How should we think about cash generation in the fourth quarter? Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Right. As I mentioned, the normal seasonal pattern is extremely consistent, very strong cash generation in the fourth quarter, and we would expect that to continue. One of the things that did constrain the results in the third quarter specifically was some of the shipment issues that we had in our Crane business that will normalize this quarter. Mig Dobre - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Can you be more specific? Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Sure. But Larry can maybe expand on it, but the VPC, deferral of some of those shipments on the delivery dates that we had there was the key item there. Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: Yeah, that's correct. We had a large number of cranes we anticipated shipping in Q3, and those cranes are rolling into Q4 based on the fact that we found one reliability issue on the MLC300 that we were not happy with. And we've cleared that issue. Along with some hurdle rates experienced from our SAP implementation on material flow, we also have those headed in the right direction. So we expect this to ramp up in the fourth quarter. Mig Dobre - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next we'll go to Ann Duignan with JPMorgan.

Ann P. Duignan - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Wow, this earnings season, my name seems to be getting more creative every time. Morning. Good to hear your voice, Ken. Kenneth W. Krueger - Interim Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Ann. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Good morning.

Ann P. Duignan - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

How are you? Just on the VPC delivery deferrals, those -- I think you just answered the question --those were the result of internal issues, not customers requesting deferrals? Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: Yes, Ann; that's correct. The two issues were internal for us, and so the backlog remains intact and our team is focused 100% on delivering to those customer orders.

Ann P. Duignan - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

And are you seeing any cancellations on the claim side in terms of orders? Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: No, we have not seen any substantial movement in the order rate from a backlog standpoint.

Ann P. Duignan - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. And just to beat a dead horse on the spin of Foodservice and Cranes, are you exploring any other options for Cranes other than being a standalone business? Is that business potentially on the blocks for a strategic buyer? Kenneth W. Krueger - Interim Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Ann, I think on the blocks for strategic buyers are strong words. Obviously, the board remains positioned and is always open to listening to anything that might add value to the shareholders. But at this time, our intention is to proceed with the spin in February of 2016.

Ann P. Duignan - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. I appreciate it. I'll get back in line. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Next we'll go to Joe O'Dea with Vertical Research Partners.

Joe J. O'Dea - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Just in terms of where you are right now in conversations with rating agencies, could you give us any update there? And then how you anticipate communicating the planned leverage, whether that's going to be through filings or whether you plan a separate announcement and how we should think about timing? Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: As far as the rating agencies, we expect to be in front of them within a couple weeks. So, obviously, there's been some changes in the business and that we were incorporating all of that as we prepare to do that. And so that's the schedule there. And your second question, I'm sorry?

Joe J. O'Dea - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Just when we should think about some more visibility into the planned leverage split between the segment... Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: Got you. Sorry.

Joe J. O'Dea - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

...and so whether we see that in filings? Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: Yeah. So that's obviously a gating issue for us. We want to make sure – I think we mentioned in an earlier conference call that we're going to take a scenario-based approach, and want to make sure we don't get in front of that with some of our communication to get that clarity prior to giving any granular split of what the cap structures are specifically going to look like. So that's the sequence. And obviously, within a reasonable timeframe after meeting with the agencies, we'll be able to provide that.

Joe J. O'Dea - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay. And then on the various cost savings initiatives, could you just give a high level view across the company considering the 80/20s on the operating improvements to now (36:29) restructuring? Just at a high level what the kind of annual run rate savings are anticipated to be in kind of 2017-2018 timeframe? Hubertus M. Mühlhäuser - President & Chief Executive Officer-Manitowoc Foodservice Inc.: I think for Foodservice, we said that 2016 impact is going to be $30 million roundabout, and the run rate then as of 2017 is going to be $40 million. And actually in Foodservice, as Ken had stated, we are in implementation. I mean, we started the facility move in Cleveland; this was announced on Monday. We have also started to address head-count reduction, so we are in implementation. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: The other thing that I would mention about those numbers is that they are specifically toward the project that we talked about, the Cleveland project, and some other restructuring activities exclusively. The 80/20 simplification process, we mentioned in an earlier call, we indicated over the next three years would add about 150 basis points to the margin. Hubertus M. Mühlhäuser - President & Chief Executive Officer-Manitowoc Foodservice Inc.: Yeah. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So that would be additive to that $30 million to $40 million on essentially the restructuring activities that Hubertus just articulated. Hubertus M. Mühlhäuser - President & Chief Executive Officer-Manitowoc Foodservice Inc.: And what we have done on the 80/20 is we have pulled forward. A lot of the actions that were initially planned for 2016, we pulled into 2015. So we're going to see already this year some benefits from that.

Operator

Operator

Okay. And next we'll go to Nicole DeBlase with Morgan Stanley. Nicole DeBlase - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Yeah, thanks. Good morning, guys. Hubertus M. Mühlhäuser - President & Chief Executive Officer-Manitowoc Foodservice Inc.: Good morning. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Good morning. Kenneth W. Krueger - Interim Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning. Nicole DeBlase - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hi. So my first question is around the leverage again post split, I know you guys can't say a whole lot. But, I guess, my question is, if you're still committed to both post spin entities being investment-grade credits rated? Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: No, no, that's not a core objective. Obviously, over the long term that that could be a sensible target for us to look towards. But I think what we've been saying pretty consistently is that we would seek to have the ratings to be as close as possible to the existing enterprise rating for Manitowoc and try to adopt a structure for both businesses that would enable us to do that. Nicole DeBlase - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. Okay. Got it. Understood. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: And I would also clarify that we're not investment-grade today. Nicole DeBlase - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Yeah. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Nor we actually have or been. Nicole DeBlase - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. Fair enough. And then on the Crane business, this question has been asked in a few ways, but how much was the business impacted by VPC execution issues during the third quarter? And, I guess, what I'm trying…

Operator

Operator

And now, we'll go to Steven Fisher with UBS.

Steven Michael Fisher - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Hey, thanks. Good morning. How should we think about the rightsizing and plant rationalizing you've planned for the Crane business? Is this a permanent capacity reduction because you mentioned those things in addition to the head count reductions or, are you just somehow making the business more flexible while keeping the same capacity? Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: It's a great question, and you're correct. The rightsizing of the footprint will be what I would consider permanent, because what we're finding with a lot of the Lean activities that we have put in place, we're utilizing the floor space that we have more efficiently. And I think our focus on improving our agility – the two go hand in hand. So this is strategic as well as how we set the footprint for Cranes going forward from a manufacturing standpoint. Kenneth W. Krueger - Interim Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Just to supplement what Larry said, as he said, the majority of this is permanent reduction in the capacity. But I think we will also use this opportunity to introduce the concept of mothballing some of our facilities in order to preserve our opportunities on the upside. We need to look at the cost of that. But I think the perception is, is that we can at a relatively low cost sort of park some facilities and park some capacity for the future. Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: Right. Kenneth W. Krueger - Interim Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: The majority of it will be permanent reduction, but some of it will be set aside and mothballed.

Steven Michael Fisher - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Well, when you say a permanent reduction, I mean is this sort of an acknowledgement that just the crane market overall and/or your market share is not going to back to what it was in the past? Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: No, I don't think that's it at all. I think it's more of looking at how we've been utilizing the space we have in our plans to begin with. We've gone through a transition of Lean implementation over the last four years. And as we do that, one of the things you get from Lean is you free up floor space. So I think this is the point now where we can take a solid look at what do you with that excess floor space. You can either in-source stuff into it or you can take and look at how you rightsize your facilities. So our approach would be the latter.

Steven Michael Fisher - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. And with highway bill discussions underway, have you guys thought about what a flattish three-year bill would mean to your crane sales? Would it help materially? What kind of cranes would you see the most benefit in, if you would at all, and are customers already talking to you about a potential pick-up in orders at all? Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: Well, I think the highway bill would be great because it would definitely affect our RT sales and small crawler sales. I don't think customers right now are looking much out the window at all. I think when it becomes a reality, I think that's when it'll start, but that would definitely be an uptick for the sales of those two specific product lines.

Steven Michael Fisher - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next, we'll go to Charley Brady with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

Charles D. Brady - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Analyst

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Just on the Foodservice side, I wondered if you can give us a little more comfort on you closing the plant in Cleveland. Obviously some of the restructuring activities and the plant moves in the relatively recent past, there's been some good disruption there. It's been a pretty big negative on margins. I guess what did you kind of learn from that and what's going on differently now with this large plant move? And give us some comfort maybe that we're not going to have a hiccup that's going to hit the margins on Foodservice again? Hubertus M. Mühlhäuser - President & Chief Executive Officer-Manitowoc Foodservice Inc.: Yeah, I'm happy to answer that. Obviously we have done some learnings over the past, and I think a lot of the execution issues that we had was down to bad planning. And I think this move is very, very carefully planned out with people that really have shown in the business that they can do these plant moves. And secondly, we will only shut down once we know that the receiving facilities can produce, so we're going to have a time of parallel manufacturing. The intention is also to bring the customers to the receiving sites to see the quality that comes out there. And thirdly, I think the receiving sites have a history of producing similar products. So it's not that they're going to get something that it says brand new to them. So, therefore, we feel very, very comfortable. And in reality, we have also had a couple of successful moves, but you haven't heard of them, and we've taken those good examples and we're going to apply them here. But we are very, very comfortable that we can do this very, very smoothly.

Charles D. Brady - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Analyst

Thanks. And I guess just switching over on the Crane side again. Carl, we've got three consecutive quarters of Crane declines. The outlook looks pretty bleak from anyone ordering cranes. You have to go back to 2009 to see a margin level even adjusting for the VPC push-out, you have to go back to 2009 to get a margin level this low and a Crane order this low. And as we go into Q4 here, are you hearing any signs that you think as we get into 2016 that we're going to have any kind of lift in 2016 at all and that this Crane business isn't going to have at least one quarter where they lose money? Thanks. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Yeah. Charley, I would say that there certainly is not any pie-in-the-sky expectations about a turnaround at this point in time in the Crane business. We're expecting 2016 to be a challenging year, given the trends that are out there in a lot of the – the overall environment that we've talked a lot about during the call. And we're adjusting to that and do not – as I mentioned before, we'll get into some more specific guidance at a later date, but we expect to be able to perform better from a margin standpoint even with the top line decline? Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: Yeah, Charley, one other thing I would say is I think the biggest impact to that margin so far has been the plant absorption issues. So we have a clear plan of how to address the loss through that absorption loss, which will have an impact.

Charles D. Brady - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Analyst

But you're not going to see that impact really in 2016, right? From what I understood, it's (47:34) 2017, 2018 is when you see the restructuring on Crane. So the impact to 2016, is there any benefit at all to that? Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: Yeah, because the things we're talking about here are additional steps. We've already taken a number of steps this year with what we've done in specific plants that are going to affect the variance for next year clearly.

Operator

Operator

Moving on, we'll next go to Robert Wertheimer with Barclays.

Robert Wertheimer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks, good morning. Kenneth W. Krueger - Interim Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning.

Robert Wertheimer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

My first question for Hubertus. Do you see structural opportunity if you had a chance to look at your customer concentration, your customer base, where you have share, where you don't have share? Maybe there's a chance to really sort of broaden out and pick up share. I wonder if you think that's accurate and the timeline which you might think that's attackable if so? Hubertus M. Mühlhäuser - President & Chief Executive Officer-Manitowoc Foodservice Inc.: Well, definitely. And I think we have a very, very strong position with the large chains. We're very happy on that and we know that we have room for improvement and growth in the larger markets, and that's what we're addressing. We have an active dialogue with all the buying groups. We like what they're doing, and we have already a share with them and we would expect and hope that we can grow that with the general markets. We are also very comfortable with our reps. So I think what you're going to see is that we continue to grow with our large customers. And as you know, some of these large customers are actually in a turnaround situation, successful turnarounds as well, talking about McDonald's, I think you've seen the last quarter results. I think they are turning definitely the corner. This is going to benefit us. And on the back of that, we would like to grow with them and also in the general market through our distribution. That's the plan, that's the plan for the U.S., but also in Europe and in Asia.

Robert Wertheimer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Would you say you're focusing more of your time on cost opportunities than trying to reignite something in the revenue side or is that unfair? Hubertus M. Mühlhäuser - President & Chief Executive Officer-Manitowoc Foodservice Inc.: No, I would say we have a very good balance. Obviously, prior to the spin, we do everything to close the margin gap to our competitors as much as we can. But we are actively working, of course, also on the time after the spin. And in fact, I just came from a four-day show in Milan, the HOST show, it's the biggest foodservice show. And the feedback that we got from the customers of our newly introduced product was fantastic. And I've never seen that, but we kind of turned $2 million of sales every day, which is very unusual for these shows. And specifically our new product introduction this year is the Convotherm ovens, which is – will be the best product on the market if you compare it by the functions. Our new Merrychef e2s and also the Quick Filter fries from Frymaster, they are really hostellers that we introduced this year and we're going to see the benefits of that. And then for next year we have 25 new product introductions planned. So I think we're doing a lot in order to make sure that once we're an independent company that we cannot only show profitability but also growth.

Robert Wertheimer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

That was great, thank you. Carl, if I can just ask one quick process question, I don't if it's answerable or not. But at what point would you have locked in commitments on financing rate and commitment? Does that just add close or is there some point before them where you've got the financing all dialed in? Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: It's not really answerable. What we would seek to do is to make sure that we've got the largest window. As you know, some of these debt capital markets can be lumpy in terms of the receptivity in the markets, and so we would want to have the luxury to make as wide a window as possible, so we could hit the market at a more favorable time. Practically speaking, the expectation, it would be – the ability to do it would be sometime in the December, January timeframe all the way up to the anticipated close, whenever it might be in February.

Operator

Operator

Next we go to Ted Grace with Susquehanna.

Ted Grace - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Good morning, gentlemen. Kenneth W. Krueger - Interim Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Ted. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Hey, Ted.

Ted Grace - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Ken, I was just wondering if you could touch on – I know you talked about kind of the priorities as Interim CEO, but just kind of what your immediate focus is, whether it's helping with the operation, helping with the leadership changes that are probably similar in importance? But just kind of what your immediate focus is on in the next 30 days, 60 days, 90 days? And then also kind of what your priorities are on looking for a new leadership within Cranes, whether it's industry expertise, turnaround expertise. They may or may not be both achievable, but can you just walk through kind of those two questions to start? Kenneth W. Krueger - Interim Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. Thanks, Ted. First of all, the near-term priorities are, one is the financial performance, and I mentioned it a little earlier is, we have a detailed granularity timing on the restructuring activities and Foodservice is very good and they're in the execution phase. Cranes has been doing a lot of things throughout the course of the year. Another good hard look at the capacity and at really the levels of the Crane business is needed. We've got a good first pass at it. We do need to get that more granular, more detailed, and understand the timing better and try to make sure that we're bringing as much of the impact up as we can. So, sort of near-term financial performance is obviously front of mind. The other priority is to keep the spin on track. As I mentioned earlier in detail, the guys are doing a great job at it, but we got to – we got to keep that moving and keep that momentum going. And then as you said, the third priority is to work with some other – some of my other board members in the recruiting of a CEO for the Cranes business. I think we will be looking for somebody who has good operational approaching turnaround or turnaround kind of capabilities. Somebody who's been through a situation where there was a need to substantially improve the profitability both from a, primarily from a cost reduction leading into it, but also setting the stage and understanding how to bring growth into the equation. Somebody who is able to evaluate the portfolio of products and geography and determine where do you invest, where do you cut back and what's the path forward for improved profitability and profitable growth. So, those are going to be really the two primary things. I expect it will be somebody quite seasoned and sort of a been-there, done-that kind of guy.

Ted Grace - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Okay. And maybe this is a question for you and Larry, but when you think about Cranes specifically, and I'm not asking to throw anybody under the bus. But you look at the leadership changes that you guys have already put in place, and you look at the company's performance versus even kind of the public peers and some of the privates where you can get visibility. When you look at kind of the challenges the business has faced, how much do you think was self-inflicted versus market dynamics? And market dynamics could be – obviously, the market is very difficult. You could have FX challenges and competition. But when you think about maybe the 80/20 rule, 50-50 splits, I mean, how much of the underperformance in Cranes do you think was more kind of execution versus just a really tough environment? Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: Well, I think the environment we're facing is not unsimilar than a lot of the environment that Cat and JCB and a lot of the other industrials are in the market. I think specifically for Cranes because of the level of impact from the oil price has driven the market to a level that we have not seen and probably reiterated by H&E that we have not seen a cycle like this as long as I've been with the company. So, it's clearly a very, very tough market right now for the Crane side of the business. I think the organization we put in place for March last year -- we have the roadmap in place to execute. It's a question of we're trying to do things in a market that is so depressed that we're trying to make sure that we have the right products at the right time. So it's a tough market, clearly. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: And Larry gave – and I think your question was internal versus external, I think that's impossible to allay (56:13) any percentages to. Larry did a good job at describing the external factors. Obviously, internally there are things we could have done better and will do better. And I think really to me it boils down to timing to be able to react. We need to be a little more agile, flexible and be able to react to these quicker, and that's what we're working on right now is to be able to get to this so that anticipating in that if there is a decline, what's – what are we going to do and get it done. And so I think I would boil it down to timing and being able to get ahead of the curve. It's like trying to catch a falling knife for the last period of time, but we do need to get ahead of the curve.

Operator

Operator

Next we'll go to Seth Weber with RBC Capital Markets.

Seth R. Weber - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Hey, Seth.

Seth R. Weber - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

So – good morning. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Good morning.

Seth R. Weber - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

I just wanted to go back to the reliability and testing issues on the VPC. I mean, I guess I was under the impression that you had started shipping them earlier in the year. And so, I'm just trying to – I'm trying to understand: are these issues that were highlighted by a customer that ended up getting put back to you or did you ship any of the VPC of these cranes in the second quarter? I'm just trying to understand how this kind of came about. Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: Yeah. Sure, Seth. When you look at the crane, there is two parts of the crane. There is the base crane and then there is the attachment that goes on the back. The reliability issue that we were not satisfied with was found in one of the hoist drums with one of the attachments that goes on the crane. So the crane itself, we have – yeah, we have shipped cranes, they're are working fine. But I think the forward cranes coming have more of the attachments with the orders than just the base crane. So we were not satisfied with the reliability of this component. So we did further testing, and it did delay the shipments. So, we have the issue resolved and we're satisfied with it, but we have been shipping cranes. It was discovered by us during our testing process for those attachments.

Seth R. Weber - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

I mean is this the function of the company using a new supplier or is there – I'm just trying to understand how... Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: I'm not going to throw a supplier onto the bus. But I think anytime you have a crane of this size, you have a number of suppliers involved. But I think the key thing is our testing protocol and our reliability testing caught the issue. And clearly our decision was not to push a questionable issue into the marketplace. So, we fixed it, resolved it and ensure our customers are going to get the highest quality product that we promised them.

Seth R. Weber - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Sure, okay. And then on the order number, the 337, is it possible to characterize what areas of strength that you're seeing in that number? I mean I know you got a military order at some point. But can you – what are the areas that are still generating, still a source of order activity for the company at this point? Lawrence J. Weyers - Senior Vice President; President - Manitowoc Cranes: Well, I would characterize the third quarter and what we saw with the change in the market first. I think one of the markets that has been strong for us has been the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia. And I think what we saw there in the month of August and September is the government delayed payments to a lot of the contractors. And so, that caused kind of what I would call a back-up in that market. Similar effect in China when the currency play was in place by the Chinese, we saw a push out of tower cranes from our customers and we are seeing some of that come back now. But I think in general, the tower crane business has been stable with the exception of this push out in Asia for the third quarter. I think the all-terrain crane business had been running fairly good. But I think it's an overall global impact that we're seeing on the overall markets that's got the product lines, the demand being slowing down. So, I think overall, the towers and the ATs and obviously the large crawlers, we still have a lot of excitement and interest in the new VPC technology.

Operator

Operator

And at this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. Carl for any additional or closing remarks. Carl J. Laurino - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Before we conclude today's call, I would like to remind everyone that a replay of our third quarter conference call will be available later this morning. You can access the replay by visiting the Investor Relations section of our corporate website at www.manitowoc.com. Thank you everyone for joining us today and for your continuing interest in the Manitowoc Company. We look forward to speaking with you again during our fourth quarter conference call in January. Have a good day.

Operator

Operator

That does conclude today's conference. We thank everyone again for their participation.