RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Well, they held a CC....and nobody came.I agree with your thoughts KerBer regarding insider trading. It's probably the best signal any management team can provide the markets beyond guidance.
Speaking of guidance for 2019, a few things to note:
* They expact farm rev to rise 12% in 2019 but AJX will trail the industry because of their place in the value chain (means TRMB, RAVN, crop prices are better leading indicators vs. co-incidental indicators). I'm assuming this comment pertains to the business as it stands today so overall sales might not grow at all or be negative as they sold outback/satloc (not a big deal if sales don't increase; cash operating earnings are what matter)
* Margins took a 2.5% hit in 4Q18 because of a warranty issue associated with the bulk purchase order. Fortunately it happened earlier rather than later and management seems to have addressed any concern.
* Bulk purchase order - Drove roughly $22.7mm in additional revenue last year at likely a 30% margin less the warranty claim. So overall fairly low margin business. Perhaps the order will not be repeated in "bulk" but that doesn't mean all the orders will go away, especially if it's with Claas. So possibility of lower sales but higher margin (incrementally flat to a bit lower). Of course this will depend on the state of the ag markets which are currently weak. Management has signalled that a follow-on bulk order is not expected.
* New VAR's in China - Haven't done much business their but interesting to see the statement. As for the rest of APAC I thought sales to Kubota for the rice planter were set to begin in Q4? We didn't hear any updates with regards to that
* Wheelman sales to make up for loss of Outback and Satloc. This won't happen in it's entirity for the year, but I suspect by the time we get to Q3/Q4 the sales hay have been replaced for those quarters, so overall company sales might be flat for the year (or even slightly down especially in Q1 and Q2) but I would expect higher margins
* IP patents - Looks like an annual contribution of $1.1mm - $1.5mm from the Raven and Hemisphere patents combined, a little less than I would have thought but they will be tied to how well these businesses perform (again, down ag market). Outback will be rolling out new products shortly which could help get royalties up another $200k-$500k. We need more IP agreements for this to make a difference (perhaps this is the Mahindra strategy given it was an access to technology agreement)