Phoenix-based Cavco Industries, a full-service builder of park model RVs as well as manufactured homes and other structures, has reported net revenue for the first fiscal quarter of 2021 of $255 million, down 3.5 percent from $264 million in the previous year’s quarter.
The company said the loss was due primarily from 12 percent fewer home sales volume in the company’s factory-built housing segment.
Net income was $16.7 million for the first quarter of fiscal year 2021, compared to net income of $21.3 million in the same quarter of the prior year, a 22 percent decrease.
After the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in early March, Cavco
continued to operate substantially all of its homebuilding and retail sales facilities while working to follow COVID-19 health guidelines.
Operational efficiencies declined from adjusting home production processes to comply with health guidelines, managing higher factory employee absenteeism, limited new-hire availability and certain building material supply shortages. Accordingly, the company’s total average plant capacity utilization rate fell to as low as approximately 45 percent during the early part of the first fiscal year quarter, compared to pre-pandemic levels of more than 80 percent. By the end of the quarter, overall plant capacity utilization rates were approximately 70 percent compared to approximately 80 percent during last year’s first fiscal quarter as the company continues to work to increase production.
Sales order activity also declined substantially at the beginning of the quarter due to the onset of COVID-19. Pandemic restrictions that began in March 2020 had a cascading effect on every point in the home sales process, including delaying some orders and sales late into the first quarter. Sales activity continuously improved over the balance of the quarter to the point where sales order rates were somewhat higher than the comparable prior year at quarter’s end.
