Company Reports

Oshkosh is a leading designer and manufacturer of niche small and medium-sized machines and other vocational vehicles that aid its customers in conducting various forms of work across construction sites, factories, airports, and municipalities. The company holds leading market shares in most of its categories, thanks to a strong portfolio of brands and highly engineered products. Historically, its market-leading JLG aerial work platform business (the “access” segment) has been the strongest performer, though also the most cyclical given its end market exposures (largely construction and other job sites). The Vocational and recently rebranded Transport segments are focused more on municipal and government customers and have historically had more resilient demand with more visible backlogs.

Oshkosh is a leading designer and manufacturer of niche small and medium-sized machines and other vocational vehicles that aid its customers in conducting various forms of work across construction sites, factories, airports, and municipalities. The company holds leading market shares in most of its categories, thanks to a strong portfolio of brands and highly engineered products. Historically, its market-leading JLG aerial work platform business (the “Access” segment) has been the strongest performer, though also the most cyclical given its end market exposures (largely construction and other job sites). The Vocational and recently rebranded Transport segments are focused more on municipal and government customers and have historically had more resilient demand with more visible backlogs.

Oshkosh reported 6.7% revenue growth to $2.9 billion, but adjusted earnings per share compressed 15.8% to $2.87 due to adverse mix and manufacturing overhead in its Pierce fire truck business.

Oshkosh reported flat revenue of $2.3 billion. Operating income of $96 million (4.2% margin) fell 50% and adjusted EPS fell 56% to $0.85 per share. The company maintained its guidance of $11 billion in sales and EPS of $11.50, though this is highly back-end loaded.

Oshkosh is a leading designer and manufacturer of niche small and medium-sized machines and other vocational vehicles that aid its customers in conducting various forms of work across construction sites, factories, airports, and municipalities. The company holds leading market shares in most of its categories, thanks to a strong portfolio of brands and highly engineered products. Historically, its market-leading JLG aerial work platform business (the “Access” segment) has been the strongest performer, though also the most cyclical given its end market exposures (largely construction and other job sites). The Vocational and recently rebranded Transport segments are focused more on municipal and government customers and have historically had more resilient demand.

Oshkosh reported 3% declines in 2025 sales and EPS to $10 billion and $10.02, respectively. The main driver was cyclical weakness in the aerials segment (mainly JLG). Guidance for 2026 seemed soft given other trends.

Oshkosh is a leading designer and manufacturer of niche small and medium-sized machines and other vocational vehicles that aid its customers in conducting various forms of work across construction sites, factories, airports, and municipalities. The company holds leading market shares in most of its categories, thanks to a strong portfolio of brands and highly engineered products. Historically, its market-leading JLG aerial work platform business (the “Access” segment) has been the strongest performer, though also the most cyclical given its end market exposures (largely construction and other job sites). The Vocational and recently rebranded Transport segments are focused more on municipal and government customers and have historically had more resilient demand.

We are relaunching coverage of Oshkosh with a fair value estimate of $163 per share. Oshkosh is a leading manufacturer of purpose-built vehicles and equipment serving a broad range of industries, including construction, public safety, aviation, waste management, and defense.

Oshkosh is a leading designer and manufacturer of niche small and medium-sized machines and other vocational vehicles that aid its customers in conducting various forms of work across construction sites, factories, airports, and municipalities. The company holds leading market shares in most of its categories, thanks to a strong portfolio of brands and highly engineered products. Historically, its market-leading JLG aerial work platform business (the “Access” segment) has been the strongest performer, though also the most cyclical given its end market exposures (largely construction and other job sites). The Vocational and recently rebranded Transport segments are focused more on municipal and government customers and have historically had more resilient demand.

We will discontinue analyst coverage of Oshkosh on or around July 8. We provide analyst research and ratings on over 1,500 companies globally and periodically adjust our coverage according to investor interest and staffing.

Narrow-moat Oshkosh reported solid first-quarter results, and we have increased our fair value estimate to $122 per share from $115. The change is largely attributable to our stronger near-term sales and margin expectations.

We think Oshkosh will continue to be the top player across its end markets. Its enviable competitive positioning is underpinned by its ability to make strong-performing products that exhibit high durability. Remarkably, Oshkosh has been able to replicate its brand strength in unrelated end markets, such as aerial lifts and commercial vehicles (military, fire, and emergency). Despite having very few synergies among its businesses, Oshkosh has been adept at implementing its technology across vehicle platforms.

We think Oshkosh will continue to be the top player across its end markets. The company’s enviable competitive positioning is underpinned by its ability to produce strong-performing products that exhibit high durability. Remarkably, Oshkosh has been able to replicate its brand strength in unrelated end markets, such as aerial lifts and commercial vehicles (military, fire, and emergency). Despite having very few synergies among its businesses, Oshkosh has been adept at implementing its technology across vehicle platforms.

We raised our fair value estimate by 5% to $115 per share (up from $110 previously), following solid fourth-quarter earnings. Oshkosh increased sales by nearly 12% year on year, thanks to solid growth in access equipment (up 7%) and defense segments (increased 7%). The AeroTech acquisition positively affected vocational business sales, which contributed $176 million to segment sales in the quarter, or 24% of sales. In total, the segment’s sales were up 26% compared with the same period last year.

We think Oshkosh will continue to be the top player across its end markets. The company’s enviable competitive positioning is underpinned by its ability to produce strong-performing products that exhibit high durability. Remarkably, Oshkosh has been able to replicate its brand strength in unrelated end markets, such as aerial lifts and commercial vehicles (military, fire, and emergency). Despite having very few synergies among its businesses, Oshkosh has been adept at implementing its technology across vehicle platforms.

Oshkosh posted solid third-quarter earnings, leading us to increase our fair value estimate by nearly 7% to $110 (from $103 previously). We attribute nearly 6 percentage points of the fair value increase to the time value of money since our last update, with the balance coming from upward adjustments to our near-term forecast.

We think Oshkosh will continue to be the top player across its end markets. The company’s enviable competitive positioning is underpinned by its ability to produce strong-performing products that exhibit high durability. Remarkably, Oshkosh has been able to replicate its brand strength in unrelated end markets, such as aerial lifts and commercial vehicles (military, fire, and emergency). Despite having very few synergies among its businesses, Oshkosh has been adept at implementing its technology across vehicle platforms.

Investors reacted positively to Oshkosh’s second-quarter earnings, which showed earnings per share of $2.69, nearly 64% above FactSet consensus bottom-line estimates. The company’s shares were up 10% in intraday trading. EPS performance was higher than we were expecting, which led us to raise our near-term sales and margin forecasts. As a result, we raised our fair value estimate to $103 from $99 previously.

We believe Oshkosh will continue to be the top player across its end markets. The company’s enviable competitive positioning is underpinned by its ability to produce strong-performing products that exhibit high durability. Remarkably, Oshkosh has been able to replicate its brand strength in unrelated end markets, such as aerial lifts and commercial vehicles (military, fire, and emergency). Despite having very few synergies among its businesses, Oshkosh has been adept at implementing its technology across vehicle platforms.

On May 30, Oshkosh announced its acquisition of AeroTech from John Bean Technologies for approximately $800 million. Management expects to close the deal in third-quarter 2023. Overall, we think the deal will be accretive to Oshkosh's earnings, leading us to increase our fair value estimate to $99 from $91. In our view, Oshkosh paid a fair price for a business well positioned to benefit from growing air passenger traffic and U.S. infrastructure spending focused on airport revitalization. The deal multiple came out to 7.2 times EV/forward EBITDA, including run-rate synergies and expected tax benefits.