Orders up, turnover down at KBA

22 May 2008


In the first three months of the year, German press manufacturer KBA posted a 5.5 per cent increase in new orders to €370.3M (2007: €350.9M). Major contracts from US and Turkish newspaper publishers helped boost the order intake from €180.2M to €199.3M; and despite a sluggish US market, the volume of incoming orders for sheet-fed presses, at €171M, was roughly the same as the previous year (€170.7M).As in the years 2004 to 2006, group sales fell well short of the prior-year figure (€301.7M, compared with €414.2M). While sheet-fed sales of €144M were just 8 per cent lower than in 2007 (€156.6M), sales of web and special presses slid by more than a third, from €257.6M to €157.7M.

This is because most web presses will not ship until the second half of the year. As KBA president and ceo Albrecht Bolza-Schünemann puts it: “Accounting schedules have no bearing on shipping schedules”.

The shortfall in sales impacted heavily on results, with an operating loss of €5M (2007: €13.5M profit) and pre-tax loss of €6.4M (2007: €13M profit) lagging targets by a wide margin. KBA closed the quarter with a net loss of €1M (2007: €9.3M profit).

The volume of unfilled orders for web and special presses rose from €565.9M to €611.5M, but the backlog for sheet-fed presses fell from €319.5M to €249M, so further contracts are needed to safeguard production in the second half year. KBA says it is confident that drupa will provide the necessary stimulus.

On the company’s prospects, Albrecht Bolza-Schünemann says: “Looking beyond the unsatisfactory first quarter sales and earnings, and notwithstanding the economic, currency and commodity related risks our group is facing, we stand by the targets we stated in late March of around €1.6B in sales and a pre-tax profit on a par with 2007 (€63.2M). The outlook for the second half year will be much clearer once the figures for drupa have been assessed.”





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