Acquisitions help boost Middleby Corp. 3Q sales

ELGIN - The Middleby Corp. said net sales for the third quarter of 2015 increased 11.1 percent on strong performance of its commercial food service division.

The manufacturer of equipment for the commercial food service, food processing and residential kitchen industries also said recent acquisitions helped boost the quarter's result,

Net sales in its Commercial Foodservice Equipment Group increased $28.1 million to $290.9 million in the quarter, compared to $262.8 million the same period in 2014. The company said part of the results were boosted by the acquisitions of Concordia in 2014 and Desmon, Goldstein Eswood, Marsal and Induc in 2015. Excluding the acquisitions, sales increased by 6.5 percent in the third quarter.

Net sales in the Residential Kitchen Equipment Group increased $17.6 million, or 26.5 percent, to $83.9 million in the third quarter, compared to $66.3 million in the prior year third quarter. The company's Food Processing Equipment Group's net sales decreased by $1 million, or 1.3 percent, to $74.2 million in the quarter, compared to $75.2 million the prior year third quarter.

"We have realized strong sales growth at the Commercial Foodservice Equipment Group as we continued to increase our business with chain restaurant customers adopting our new and innovative technologies as they seek to improve the efficiency of their restaurant operations," said Selim A. Bassoul, Middleby Corp. chairman and chief executive officer. "We maintained our strong profitability in this segment while integrating five business units acquired during the past year."

Net earnings for the third quarter were $48.8 million, or 86 cents per share on net sales of $449 million, as compared to the prior year third quarter net earnings of $59.7 million. or $1.05 per share on net sales of $404.2 million.