Oshkosh Posts $211 Million 3Q Profit

Oshkosh Corp. said Monday its fiscal third-quarter profit jumped on higher military orders, turning around a loss from a year ago.

The specialty truck maker’s net income was $211.2 million, or $2.31 per share, compared with a loss of $26.6 million, or 36 cents per share, a year ago.

Revenue for the quarter ended June 30 nearly doubled to $2.44 billion, from $1.22 billion a year earlier.

Defense segment sales soared to $1.7 billion from $605.4 million in the same period a year ago, the Associated Press reported, with most of that through its M-ATV, or mine resistant armored vehicle, contract,.

Commercial segment sales rose 14.4% to $158.3 million, due to a 45.8% increase in concrete placement products sales. Operating income increased to $7 million, compared with operating income of $2.1 million a year ago.

Fire and emergency segment sales for the third quarter of fiscal 2010 fell 15.6% to $243.3 million, reflecting softer demand from U.S. municipal budgets and overall economic weakness, Oshkosh said in a statement.

Oshkosh said that it expects “another strong quarterly performance” in its fourth quarter and that its defense segment performance “will provide a solid foundation to what we anticipate will be a gradual economic recovery, although we will not attain defense segment revenue levels that approach our fiscal 2010 defense performance because we will have completed the bulk of our M-ATV shipments in fiscal 2010.”