Morgan Stanley Maintains on Manitowoc

In a report published Friday, Morgan Stanley analyst Nicole DeBlase maintained an Overweight rating on

, with a $30.00 price target. According to the report, the analysts agree that 4Q is likely to be a weak one for MTW – they forecast a $0.03 miss vs. cons driven by Crane. However, they look forward to a year of order acceleration, and would use any earnings day weakness to accumulate shares prior to ConExpo in early March, which is viewed as the next catalyst. “We forecast $0.31 EPS, a $0.03 miss vs. current cons,” the report noted. “We believe the nexus of our lower forecast is within the Crane segment, where we forecast a 10% Y/Y decline in revenue, implying 3% growth for the full year (below MSD guidance). The reason for our skepticism is the fact that MTW exited 3Q13 with a $568m backlog, which still does not cover our $691m revenue est (so we have embedded a healthy degree of book-and-ship orders). We expect flattish Crane orders of $465m as we heard no signs of activity pickup throughout the quarter. We forecast another strong quarter of Crane margins, 9.6% (+150bps Y/Y). In Foodservice, we project another quarter of 2% core growth (offset by 2ppt Jackson divestiture headwind) and look for a return to Y/Y margin expansion (+30bps to 14.7%) as manufacturing investments pay back.” MTW closed Thursday at $23.97 with shares trading down at 4.31 percent.