ARI 1Q earnings rise

American Railcar Industries late Wednesday reported first-quarter net earnings of $17.9 million for its first quarter ended March 31, up a substantial 49% from the prior-year quarter, mostly on strong tank car sales. But earnings of 84 cents per share disappointed Wall Street, where consensus analyst estimates forecast 96 cents per share.

Revenue was $195.1 million, up 7% from the same quarter a year, falling just short of Wall Street analyst expectations of $199 million.

“We had approximately 3,120 railcars in the company’s lease fleet at the end of the first quarter of 2013, compared to approximately 950 railcars at the end of the same period in 2012,” the company said in a statement.

American Railcar Industries’ backlog as of March 31 was approximately 6,400 railcars, including approximately 2,080 railcars for lease. ARI had approximately 7,060 railcars in its backlog as of Dec. 31, 2012, including approximately 1,810 railcars for lease.

In a note to clients Thursday, KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. analysts Steve Barger and Tejas Patel wrote, “We estimate railcar orders in the quarter came in at 1,240 vs. 1,900 deliveries, suggesting a unit book:bill of 0.65x. That order number is below our expectations of 1,500, but, more important, is well below what we would have xpected after seeing the remarkably strong industry tank car order number of 19,267 reported on April 17.”

Shares of ARII were down roughly 12% in mid-morning Nasdaq trading Thursday.