Caterpillar Case Analysis

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Income Statement
Caterpillar, Inc.
• An analysis of Caterpillar’s 2015 Income Statement revealed a 15.3% decrease in sales on machinery, energy, and transportation between 2014 and 2015. While the company experienced a nearly negligible change (-1.05%) in operational revenues from 2013 to 2014, they experienced a very severe decline between 2014 and 2015. Operational revenues dropped from $52,142 million to $44,147 million, showing a deterioration from previous years.
• Looking further down the Income Statement, Caterpillar has experienced a 110% increase in other operating expenses between 2013 to 2015. Going from 2013 to 2014, there was a 66.5% increase, and then between 2014 and 2015, there was another large increase, this time of 26.3%. …show more content…

Still, diluted EPS fell from $8.63 in 2014 to $5.77 in 2015 - a 49.6% decrease, which is a very discouraging sign.
Caterpillar, Inc. vs. John Deere & Co.
• Both Caterpillar Inc. and John Deere & Co. experienced a very tumultuous 2015. They both experienced significant drops in revenues - 15.33% for Caterpillar, related to sales on machinery, energy, and transportation, 21.8% for John Deere, related to equipment operations - from 2014. John Deere may have taken the higher percentage loss, but Caterpillar took the larger dollar value hit. John Deere had a decrease of $7,204.1 million (consolidated income), while Caterpillar had a decrease of $8,173 million (consolidated income).
• To make things worse, it appears that there are some efficiency factors coming into play, as EBIT for both companies fell by more than the decrease in sales. For Caterpillar, equipment sales fell 15.3%, while consolidated EBIT fell 43.8%, and for John Deere, a 21.8% decrease in equipment-related sales led to a 42.0% decrease in consolidated …show more content…

However, whereas Caterpillar and John Deere manufacture machinery that are substitutes for each other, the success of complementary products are also crucial. Whereas Caterpillar is a company that is based on construction equipment, John Deere is first and foremost an agricultural company. More specifically, a corn-driven company. This is never more evident than when looking at 2015. The 16% drop in stock price in 2015 coincided with a very poor corn harvest, but things are looking up. The USDA recently forecasted a record-high in corn-production, along with soybean production. Corn production is expected to increase by 11% in 2016 compared to 2015, which will greatly help with John Deere equipment sales. In addition, corn prices are finally expected to begin to recover in the next three years (Clark, 2015), which provides yet another positive factor for the growth in sales of John

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