WEST FARGO, N.D. -- Titan Machinery Inc. has been expanding equipment sales into Europe since 2005, accounting for just less than 10 percent of overall sales, despite adverse geopolitical events.
The company started selling used and short-line equipment - sprayers and tillage machinery - helping a region with similar climate and growing conditions advance to more modern parts and support.
"It's a frontier, a heck of an opportunity," says David Meyer, Titan’s CEO at the West Fargo, N.D., headquarters. "Case-IH wanted western-style dealerships in that part of the country."
In some areas, Titan would have been the only dealership in a market half the size of North Dakota. Individual corporate-style farms can be around 200,000 acres.
In 2012, Titan started buying what are now 16 CNH dealerships in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Ukraine.
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The timing hasn't been optimal.
A general downturn in eastern European markets started in the fall of 2013, culminating with Ukrainian government turmoil in February 2014. The troubles are not over. The Ukrainian currency devalued 49 percent in the first quarter of 2015.
Titan's dealerships in Ukraine are in the central and northern regions - a little out of the war zone in eastern Ukraine, says Peter Christianson, who will lead Titan's international operations until switching to a consulting role in February.
"Farmers over there are still going out and planting, but it's really impacted their business," Christianson says. "Customers still are buying parts and still need service from us in that area."
To top it off, a stronger U.S. dollar has made it more difficult for Titan to compete. But customers at the locations in Romania and Bulgaria have a program in which the European Union pays 50 to 70 percent of a farmer's investments in new machines. That’s helped Titan's overall international sales rebound by 9.7 percent in the most recent fiscal quarter.
