You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: Participating on the call today are Aaron Ravenscroft, president, and chief executive officer; and Dave Antoniuk, executive vice president, and chief financial officer.
However, actual results differ materially from any implied or actual projections due to one or more of the factors, among others, described in the company's latest SEC filings.
And with that, I will now turn over the call to you, Aaron.
Clearly, in retrospect, the economic dislocations created by our return to normal were far greater than anyone anticipated.
That being said, 2021 was a year of transition for Manitowoc on multiple fronts.
While we bounced back operationally from the COVID shutdowns, we also made significant changes in our strategic orientation.
As we laid out a year ago, we continued to build out our tower crane business and the [Inaudible] regions, launching two locally designed cranes.
We accelerated our all-terrain new product development, which will bear fruit at the upcoming BAUMA trade show this October.
We invested $15 million in our tower crane rental fleet in Europe, which helped us increase our market share in Germany and win some strategic orders with key accounts.
And finally, we completed two acquisitions in North America, which lays the groundwork for us to grow our aftermarket presence in the local mobile cranes market.
And currently, we continue to make progress on our ESG journey and more traditional safety terms.
The team doubled our hazard observations that we call SLAMS, and our recordable injury rate, excluding acquisitions, was 1.39 for the year.
While our RIR was up slightly year over year, it is still well below the industry benchmark, and I am very pleased with our performance in the face of the previous year.
On the sustainability front, we implemented [Inaudible], a tracking system to help us account for our environmental footprint, and we are utilizing the Manitowoc Way to drive continuous improvement.
For example, we assembled a global team to collaborate on paint booth emission reductions and have already begun to realize benefits.
As for diversity, we've been leaning and hard on this initiative to help offset our labor shortages.
Namely in Shady Grove, we implemented our first ESL program to help attract Spanish-speaking members of our community, and we have begun to offer relocation incentives to nearby cities such as Philadelphia to attract employees to our internal welding and machining schools.
With respect to our balance sheet, we continue to position the company for long-term growth.
After investing $40 million in capex and $186 million on two acquisitions, we closed the year with $75 million of cash on hand and $250 million of liquidity.
Considering the difficulties of managing working capital in the current environment, I'm comfortable with where we ended 2021.
For sure, the economic dislocations created by the return to normal were far greater than we anticipated a year ago, and I am extremely appreciative of all hard work by our team to minimize inflation as best as we could, implement price increases, and manage parts shortages while executing our long term strategy.
Specifically, I would like to recognize Jim Glenwright and Sebastian Maleigh, who recently won the CEO award for the Manitowoc Way.
In the midst of all of the economic chaos of 2021, Manitowoc encountered a cyberattack in June.
Jim led our effort to restore our IT system all at the same time continue to implement a new ERP system for MGX Equipment Services.
Meanwhile, across the pond, Sebastian earned his award for his contributions to the continuous improvement of our manufacturing processes and our tower factories.
He led projects to implement an automated tube cutting machine and move on while kicking off another significant machining project in our [Inaudible] factory.
I'm very proud of the commitment and passion of our employees at Manitowoc, and these two leaders truly represent the spirit of The Manitowoc Way.
Finally, I am pleased to announce that our changes on the factory won our annual Manitowoc Way Lessons Learned competition for 2021.
The Welding Value Stream and services support teams developed a homemade robot for welding mass rod bars.
Through ingenuity, the team built a robotic [Inaudible] for less than $10,000 to buy the same machine when it costs 10 times as much, and it would not have been specifically designed for the job at hand.
Turning to the financials, I would like to add a little color to our recent performance.
Generally, the story on demand remains consistent with the last couple of quarters.
Every region and every product category is doing well, except for the China market.
Orders for the quarter totaled $615 million and our backlog ended the year just over $1 billion, our highest level in over 10 years.
This was driven by continued solid activity in our end markets, rebounding customer sentiment, and improved dealer stocking levels.
Looking at the P&L, I have to admit I was very surprised by how we ended the year.
Inflation, part shortages, and logistical problems have been a serious issue for us for over six months, and unfortunately, they are creating a really volatile situation when it comes to predicting short-term results.
On the back of third soft third quarter shipments during October and November, periods were $75 million lower than our internal forecasts.
And as we entered December, vessels continued to be postponed while at the same time Omicron was spreading around the world.
Much to our surprise, we were fortunate in the last couple of weeks of the year and received several key parts shipments, which enabled us to complete several cranes.
In fact, we cut back over $25 million of shipments during December, which was nothing short of the heroic effort by our operations team.
This, combined with tighter cost management and payroll mix, helped us deliver a healthy EBITDA of $34 million in the fourth quarter.
Dave will officially step down as the CFO on May 2nd, at which time Brian Regan will assume the CFO role.
Dave will, however, remain with Manitowoc Way advisory role until January 2, 2023.
Dave has played an integral role in Manitowoc's evolution since 2016.
He led us through the difficult times after the Foodservice business spin-off.
He renegotiated our debt in 2019.
And finally, he shepherded our recent acquisitions.
Dave, it's been my pleasure working alongside of you for the last six years.
We wish you the absolute best in the next phase of your life.
the team wanted you to end on a high note.
Please provide color on the fourth-quarter financial results.
It's been an honor and a privilege to work with you over the past six years.
The many thought-provoking questions and comments surely challenged my thinking for the betterment of Manitowoc.
Now moving to our results for the quarter, which ended the year on a considerable high note.
Please move to Slide 4.
Our fourth quarter orders totaled $650 million of the book-to-bill of 1.24 and an increase of 21%, compared to $509 million of orders last year.
The increase in orders was primarily due to higher global demand.
Orders were unfavorably impacted by approximately $13 million from changes in foreign currency exchange rates.
Our 2021 ending backlog of $1 billion was up 86% over the prior year and is at its highest level in over 10 years.
The increase in backlog was across all segments and primarily due to higher global demand and lower than expected shipments in the fourth quarter due to supply chain challenges and logistic constraints.
Backlog was unfavorably impacted by approximately $40 million from changes in foreign currency exchange rates.
Net sales in the fourth quarter of $498 million increased $68 million, or 16% from a year ago.
The incremental net sales from acquisitions in the quarter were $24 million, slightly below the $30 million we communicated in the prior quarter.
Net sales were unfavorably impacted by approximately $9 million from changes in foreign currency exchange rates.
SG&A costs are up $24 million.
Due to confidential negotiations with the EPA, we are unable to provide any further updates at this time.
Our acquisitions increased SG&A costs by $8 million in the quarter and the remainder of the increases were primarily inflation-related.
Our adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $34 million flat year over year.
The acquisitions accounted for approximately $3 million during the quarter, which was in line with our expectations.
As I discussed last quarter, the Q4 adjusted EBITDA from the acquisitions was impacted by the elimination of intercompany profit and ending inventory.
We expect the impact of the elimination of intercompany profits to be nominal going forward and target approximately $30 million on an annual basis from the acquisitions.
As a percentage of sales, the adjusted EBITDA margin decreased to 6.9%, a reduction of 100 basis points over the prior year.
The decrease in margin was primarily due to the price cost dynamic in the quarter.
Income tax expenses in the quarter were $1.2 million, this was primarily driven by the jurisdictional mix of earnings, partially offset by a one-time tax benefit.
Our GAAP diluted loss per share in the quarter was $0.10 a decline of $0.15 over the prior year.
On an adjusted basis, diluted earnings per share increased $0.8 from the prior year to $0.27 per diluted share, primarily driven by lower income tax expense in the quarter.
Now I will recap the full-year financial results.
Orders total roughly $2.2 billion, up to $655 billion dollars, or 43% from the prior year.
Foreign currency exchange rates impacted 2021 orders favorably by approximately $32 million.
Net sales for the year totaled approximately $1.7 billion.
A 19% increase from 2020 and were positively impacted by $31 million due to favorable changes in foreign currency exchange rates.
The year-over-year increase was primarily due to higher global demand.
As 2020 was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our adjusted EBITDA improved by $33 million, or 40% from the prior year.
Moreover, our adjusted EBITDA margins improved by 90 basis points to 6.7%.
Our full-year 2021 adjusted net income was $31 million compared to a net loss of $12 million in 2020.
We generated $76 million of cash flows from operating activities in the year, an increase of $111 million year over year.
We spent $40 million in capital expenditures, which resulted in $36 million of free cash flows and an improvement of $97 million year over year and ahead of our expectations.
We ended the year with a cash balance of $75 million, a decline of approximately $64 million year over year.
As a reminder, we paid $186 million for the acquisitions using available cash, along with borrowing $100 million from our ABL credit facility.
Our total liquidity on December 31, 2021, remained strong at $254 million.
As most of you know, our current notes are callable on or after April 1, 2022, at a price of 104.5%.
As I mentioned at our Investor Day on December 13, we continue to opportunistically look at our debt as the debt markets for new sources of capital or to reduce our total cost of capital.
Our 2022 guidance assumes that our current capital structure will remain in place for the full year.
As we look ahead to 2022, we expect continuing global supply chain and logistic challenges, moderation in inflationary pressure, and an unstable labor market throughout the first half of the year.
In the second half of the year, we anticipate an improved price cost dynamic and a stabilizing supply chain, logistics, and labor market.
Based on this outlook, our 2022 guidance is as follows.
Net sales are approximately $2 billion to $2.2 billion.
With regard to SG&A, it is important to note that our adjusted SG&A expenses for the year are expected to increase approximately 21% of which approximately $32 million is from acquisitions.
Our adjusted EBITDA guidance is approximately $130 million to $160 million.
Depreciation and amortization of approximately $65 million.
Interest expense is approximately $28 million to $30 million.
Provision for income tax expense approximately $13 million to $17 million.
Adjusted diluted earnings per share approximately $0.65 to $1.35.
And capital expenditures of approximately $85 million.
With our recent acquisitions and growing rental fleets, I think it's worth taking a moment to discuss how these initiatives will impact our capital expenditure investments.
As we have discussed before, oftentimes a crane is rented for two years and then sold after the acquisition value has decreased.
As such, there is always a certain level of churn in a rental fleet.
As we sell use machines, we will replenish the rental fleet with the proceeds.
We expect this to be approximately $35 million in 2022.
In addition, we are still growing our rental fleets strategically to support RPOs and market share growth and target markets such as the German Tower Crane Market.
This capex investment will approximate $25 million in 2022.
The remaining $25 million of capex will be for a normal factory capex.
Please keep in mind that the management of our rental fleet and the related capex is far more dynamic than the traditional manufacturing capex.
It is heavily dependent upon opportunistic sales transactions.
In certain instances, capex could be generated by an unexpected sale of a crane that is on rent, which will likely need to need to be replaced.
In other instances, capex can be generated by an RPO opportunity, which can be multi crane deals.
Let's move to Slide 6.
As we begin in 2022, our strategy remains unchanged and underpinned by our four strategic initiatives.
We will continue to look for attractive acquisitions to help accelerate these initiatives, and we will opportunistically evaluate our capital and debt structure to help ensure that we have the necessary flexibility as the US economy faces increasing interest rates.
Adding a little more clarity and focus to our strategy, I am pleased to announce our vision for aftermarket, which we call Cranes Plus 50.
Our goal is to increase our aftermarket or non-new machine sales by 50% over the next five years.
Historically, our business model has been highly product focus.
Our objective is to grow beyond machines and products and to sell more aftermarket parts, field service, lifting solutions, RPOs, rentals for fleet management, used sales, remanufactured cranes, and digital solutions that provide greater customer connectivity.
As a jumping-off point, we ended 2021 with $449 million in non-new machine sales, which will be outlined in our 10-K filing.
In closing, Manitowoc continues to strive to get closer to our customers and to grow our less cyclical and higher-margin revenue streams.
We continue to reposition the company for long-term growth while we weather the near-term economic storm.
We are confident that our investment in our four growth initiatives will allow us to deliver on our Cranes Plus 50 strategies and increase our non-new machine sales by 50% over the next five years, which we believe will fuel greater long-term returns for our shareholders.

user
compname reports q4 loss per share of $0.10.
q4 adjusted earnings per share $0.27.
q4 loss per share $0.10.
sees 2022 net sales about $2.0 billion to $2.2 billion.
sees 2022 adjusted diluted earnings per share about $0.65 to $1.35.

assistant