Manitowoc Foodservice, Inc. (MFS) has reported a 67.13 percent plunge in profit for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2016. The company has earned $21.40 million, or $0.15 a share in the quarter, compared with $65.10 million, or $0.48 a share for the same period last year. On the other hand, adjusted net income for the quarter stood at $22.80 million, or $0.16 a share compared with $75.20 million or $0.55 a share, a year ago.

Revenue during the quarter dropped 3.32 percent to $378.70 million from $391.70 million in the previous year period. Gross margin for the quarter expanded 264 basis points over the previous year period to 36.57 percent. Total expenses were 85.45 percent of quarterly revenues, down from 89.58 percent for the same period last year. This has led to an improvement of 413 basis points in operating margin to 14.55 percent.

Operating income for the quarter was $55.10 million, compared with $40.80 million in the previous year period.

However, the adjusted EBITDA for the quarter stood at $65.50 million compared with $64.60 million in the prior year period. At the same time, adjusted EBITDA margin improved 80 basis points in the quarter to 17.30 percent from 16.49 percent in the last year period.

"I am proud of the operating improvements our 5,500 employees delivered in 2016 as their outstanding execution of our Simplification and Right-Sizing initiatives delivered a 330 basis point improvement in adjusted operating EBITA," said Hubertus Muehlhaeuser, Manitowoc Foodservice's president and chief executive officer. "Within Simplification, we pruned an additional 7 percent of our equipment SKUs during the quarter, bringing our total equipment SKU reduction to 16 percent since we adopted the 80/20 methodology. We also made good progress this quarter on the second round of Right-Sizing that we announced last August and we have now completed the planned closure of our Sellersburg, Indiana plant in the first quarter of 2017. We also continued the journey of de-levering our balance sheet this quarter with a $66.8 million net debt reduction in the quarter, bringing our 2016 debt reduction total to $131.8 million."

For fiscal year 2017, Manitowoc Foodservice, Inc. expects diluted earnings per share to be in the range of $0.65 to $0.75 on adjusted basis.

The company has spent $20.40 million cash to meet investing activities during the year as against cash inflow of $59.10 million in the last year.

The company has spent $78.90 million cash to carry out financing activities during the year as against cash outgo of $183.10 million in the last year period.

Cash and cash equivalents stood at $53.80 million as on Dec. 31, 2016, up 68.12 percent or $21.80 million from $32 million on Dec. 31, 2015.

Debt increases substantially
Manitowoc Foodservice, Inc. has witnessed an increase in total debt over the last one year. It stood at $1,280.30 million as on Dec. 31, 2016, up 47,318.52 percent or $1,277.60 million from $2.70 million on Dec. 31, 2015. Interest coverage ratio deteriorated to 2.23 for the quarter from 102 for the same period last year.