advertisement

---

Despite a plant shutdown caused by a tornado and flat fourth-quarter revenue, American Railcar Industries Inc. (ARI) marked its best-ever financial performance in 2006.

Revenue increased 6 percent to a record $646.1 million and net earnings rose more than twenty-fold to an all-time-high $34.6 million compared with 2005. In addition, ARI shipped 6,947 rail cars compared with 6,875 in 2005 — a “significant” achievement since the company’s Marmaduke, Ark., tank-car plant was closed for four months to repair tornado-related damage, the company said.

Covered hopper deliveries totaled 5,625 units compared with 4,240 in 2005. However, tank car deliveries dropped from 1,850 units to 1,321 because of the storm.

“For the year, we maintained a very strong backlog of 16,816 rail cars,” said ARI President and Chief Executive Officer James Unger in a prepared statement. “In addition, we reached capacity on our 1,000 car-per-year expansion at our Marmaduke facility, and construction is underway on an additional 2,500 car per-year expansion.”

In the fourth quarter, ARI’s revenue dipped slightly to $165.3 million compared with $166 million in fourth-quarter 2005. However, the company reported net earnings of $6.1 million compared with a net loss of $1.8 million a year earlier. Quarterly car deliveries totaled 1,687 units, down from fourth-quarter 2005’s 1,895 units.