Florida Caterpillar dealer says inventory down by a quarter
Hernando Today, a fine Tampa Tribune product, quotes a Caterpillar dealer on how things are going in Florida’s comatose construction sector:
Hernando County’s lone Caterpillar dealer, Ring Power Corp. in Brooksville, has been scaling back considerably during the past two years.
The construction market has crashed in Hernando County and that has affected Ring Power. Vice President Mick Fields said the company’s warehouses haven’t been as packed lately. That is typical among most Caterpillar dealers these days, he said.
“We’ve cut our inventory pretty drastically over the past two years,” Fields said. “It’s all based on customer demand. We’re off by about 25 percent … maybe more.”
That squares with what Cat brass said during the conference call the other day: the company actually wants dealers to avoid letting the tractors fill up their lots if there are no buyers.
(Disclosure: I worked for the Tampa Trib for five years a long time ago).