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INDUSTRY NEWS Deere announces third-quarter earnings Toro reports fiscal 2013 third-quarter results Net income attributable to Deere & Company was $996.5 million, or $2.56 per share, for the third quarter ended July 31, 2013, compared with $788.0 million, or $1.98 per share, for the same period last year. For the first nine months of the year, net income attributable to Deere & Company was $2.730 billion, or $6.97 per share, compared with $2.377 billion, or $5.88 per share, last year. Worldwide net sales and revenues increased 4 percent, to $10.010 billion, for the third quarter and rose 8 percent to $28.345 billion for nine months. Net sales of the equipment operations were $9.316 billion for the quarter and $26.373 billion for nine months, compared with $8.930 billion and $24.454 billion for the same periods last year. "John Deere is well on the road to another year of impressive performance after reporting record third-quarter results," said Samuel R. Allen, chairman and chief executive officer, Deere & Company. Sales and income for the period were higher than in any prior third quarter, he pointed out. "Deere's success is a reflection of considerable strength in the farm sector, especially in North and South America," Allen added. "We also are making further progress executing our wide-ranging operating and marketing plans, which call for expanding our global market presence while keeping a close watch on costs and assets." The Toro Company reported net earnings of $40.1 million, or $0.68 per share, on a net sales increase of 1.2 percent to $509.9 million for its fiscal third quarter ended Aug. 2, 2013. In the comparable fiscal 2012 period, the company delivered net earnings of $40.5 million, or $0.67 per share, on net sales of $504.1 million. For the first nine months, Toro reported net earnings of $149.9 million, or $2.53 per share, on a net sales increase of 2.4 percent to $1,659.1 million. In the comparable fiscal 2012 period, the company posted net earnings of $129.3 million, or $2.13 per share, on net sales of $1,619.4 million. "For the quarter, our results were strengthened by a summer growing season with favorable temperatures and precipitation levels as compared to last year's severe drought conditions," said Michael J. Hoffman, Toro's chairman and chief executive officer. "The more desirable weather helped us drive retail sales across most of our businesses and, in particular, our residential business. In addition to realizing sales delayed in the prior quarter by adverse spring weather conditions, our residential business benefited from increased demand for our new and innovative products, including our TimeCutter zeroturn-radius riding products and our recently introduced line of lithiumion battery-powered string and hedge trimmers. "As anticipated, the Tier 4 diesel engine transition — which caused a significant portion of our professional sales to be accelerated into our first quarter from later quarters as we've historically seen — continued to impact the quarterly results for our professional business. Year-to-date, our results are solid and our business fundamentals remain sound. Our golf and landscape contractor businesses are benefiting from innovative and high-performing equipment offerings valued by our end-user customers; we continue to grow our micro irrigation business around the world; and we realized additional sales from increased customer demand for our rental products and newly introduced Toro-branded underground and construction products. "Looking ahead, although we are always mindful of the challenges that Mother Nature can create for us, as well as continuing expectations for slow worldwide economic growth, we remain cautiously optimistic about the remainder of our year. We expect favorable sales comparisons to last year's fourth quarter when limited prior season snowfall in North America and Europe significantly affected demand for our snowthrower products. Turning to field inventory, despite elevated positions held through the second quarter due to the planned execution of the Tier 4 transition and the resulting impact of the poor spring weather conditions, we believe that recent retail efforts have reduced field inventories across our product lines, and at these improved levels, we are well positioned for the future. Lastly, we expect that momentum from our productivity efforts and favorable commodity trends, somewhat offset by product mix, should drive additional earnings gains. As a result, today we are refining our full-year revenue outlook and increasing our earnings expectations." Toro now expects revenue growth for fiscal 2013 to be about 4 percent and net earnings to be about 2.55 per share, or an increase of about 19 percent over fiscal 2012. 10 OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT www.outdoorpowerequipment.com