Columbus McKinnon (NASDAQ:CMCO) Reports Sales Below Analyst Estimates In Q1 Earnings

Material handling equipment manufacturer Columbus McKinnon (NASDAQ: CMCO) missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q1 CY2025, with sales falling 7% year on year to $246.9 million. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.60 per share was 3.4% above analysts’ consensus estimates.

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"We enter fiscal 2026 with a strong backlog and continued order growth as our commercial initiatives gain traction. Our conviction in Columbus McKinnon's strategy and business model remains strong as we continue to anticipate tailwinds from industry megatrends like on-shoring, scarcity of labor and global infrastructure investments over time," said David Wilson, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Company Overview

With 19 different brands across the globe, Columbus McKinnon (NASDAQ: CMCO) offers material handling equipment for the construction, manufacturing, and transportation industries.

Sales Growth

Reviewing a company’s long-term sales performance reveals insights into its quality. Any business can experience short-term success, but top-performing ones enjoy sustained growth for years. Regrettably, Columbus McKinnon’s sales grew at a sluggish 3.5% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This was below our standard for the industrials sector and is a tough starting point for our analysis.

We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss cycles, industry trends, or a company capitalizing on catalysts such as a new contract win or a successful product line. Columbus McKinnon’s recent performance shows its demand has slowed as its annualized revenue growth of 1.4% over the last two years was below its five-year trend.

This quarter, Columbus McKinnon missed Wall Street’s estimates and reported a rather uninspiring 7% year-on-year revenue decline, generating $246.9 million of revenue.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 3.1% over the next 12 months. Although this projection indicates its newer products and services will spur better top-line performance, it is still below the sector average.

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Operating Margin

Columbus McKinnon has done a decent job managing its cost base over the last five years. The company has produced an average operating margin of 8.4%, higher than the broader industrials sector.

Analyzing the trend in its profitability, Columbus McKinnon’s operating margin decreased by 3.2 percentage points over the last five years. This raises questions about the company’s expense base because its revenue growth should have given it leverage on its fixed costs, resulting in better economies of scale and profitability.

In Q1, Columbus McKinnon generated an operating profit margin of 2%, down 8.1 percentage points year on year. Since Columbus McKinnon’s operating margin decreased more than its gross margin, we can assume it was less efficient because expenses such as marketing, R&D, and administrative overhead increased.

Earnings Per Share

We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) for the same reason as long-term revenue growth. Compared to revenue, however, EPS highlights whether a company’s growth is profitable.

Sadly for Columbus McKinnon, its EPS declined by 2.2% annually over the last five years while its revenue grew by 3.5%. This tells us the company became less profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded.

We can take a deeper look into Columbus McKinnon’s earnings to better understand the drivers of its performance. As we mentioned earlier, Columbus McKinnon’s operating margin declined by 3.2 percentage points over the last five years. Its share count also grew by 19.5%, meaning the company not only became less efficient with its operating expenses but also diluted its shareholders.

Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a more recent period because it can provide insight into an emerging theme or development for the business.

For Columbus McKinnon, its two-year annual EPS declines of 8.2% show it’s continued to underperform. These results were bad no matter how you slice the data.

In Q1, Columbus McKinnon reported EPS at $0.60, down from $0.75 in the same quarter last year. Despite falling year on year, this print beat analysts’ estimates by 3.4%. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Columbus McKinnon’s full-year EPS of $2.48 to grow 8.3%.

Key Takeaways from Columbus McKinnon’s Q1 Results

It was encouraging to see Columbus McKinnon beat analysts’ EBITDA expectations this quarter. We were also happy its EPS outperformed Wall Street’s estimates. On the other hand, its revenue slightly missed. Overall, this was a softer quarter. The stock traded down 1.1% to $17.55 immediately following the results.

So do we think Columbus McKinnon is an attractive buy at the current price? What happened in the latest quarter matters, but not as much as longer-term business quality and valuation, when deciding whether to invest in this stock. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it’s free.