Article Excerpt:
TWST: What is Sun Hydraulics?Mr. Carlson: Sun designs and manufactures screw-in hydraulic cartridge valves, manifolds and packaged systems. The company was formed in 1970 and has been profitable every year since 1972. We went public in 1997 and have paid a dividend every quarter since going public. Last summer (2005) we completed a stock dividend, and for every two shares held, our shareholders received an additional share of stock. Our current quarterly cash dividend is $0.10 per share. Sun is part of the overall hydraulics industry, which is a $20 billion industry. We manufacture screw-in hydraulic cartridge valves ' the industry for that is approximately $1 billion. We believe that the hydraulic cartridge valve and manifold segment of the industry is growing faster than the industry in general, as cartridge valve technology takes market share from conventional hydraulic valves. We believe that cartridge valve-based solutions are more compact, easier to install, more flexible and offer performance advantages. For these reasons, cartridge valves continue to be designed into new applications. Overall, it's much more of a cost- effective solution. It's easier to customize, and that means that we are into (integrated) packaged systems as well. These integrated packages use standard cartridges in a custom designed manifold to provide an application specific solution for one customer.
TWST: Give us a higher-level look at what the markets are all about
today.
Mr. Carlson: We supply to companies that manufacture capital equipment.
This includes industrial types of machinery, like metal cutting and
forming machines, injection molding machines and other machinery used in
factory production. Our products are also used in many types of mobile
equipment, things like off-road construction equipment, aerial work
platforms and manlifts, oil drilling and exploration equipment, mining
machinery, marine equipment; a whole variety of machines that are not
fixed in place and are not necessarily operated in factories.
Tickers included in this excerpt: SNHY
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