Press maker KBA has scaled down expectations for the year after web and special press orders dropped 18.5 per cent.
The company says the continuing weak web market and subdued demand for sheetfed strained earnings. “While restructuring measures are taking effect, in the first nine months KBA’s sales and order figures suffered substantially due to market and economic developments,” says a spokesman.
It says management now wants to push ahead with realignment of the group to sustainably improve earnings.
In the third quarter the volume of new orders in the KBA Group was 7.4 per cent on the same period of 2012, but for the whole nine months, order intake at Euros 709.6 million was 14.1 per cent down on 2012’s DRUPA-boosted figure. Additionally, postponed special press shipments led to a 20.3 per cent drop in group sales to Euros 729.9 million. The group order backlog of Euros 627.7 million at September 30 was also lower than 2012 (Euros 735.5 milion).
Despite a strong position in newspaper printing and the first orders for the new digital press, new orders in the web and special press fell 18.5 per cent to Euros 251.1 million, compared to Euros 308.2 million in 2012. Nine-month sales of web and special presses were down by about a third on last year.
Domestic sales were up by nearly a half, and revenue in the Asia-Pacific rose from 24.4 per cent to 28.9 per cent.
Despite strong sales it expects in the fourth quarter, KBA management expects group sales to be around Euros 1.1 billion compared to last year’s Euros 1.29 billion.
There are hopes that expanded service activities and a product portfolio for growing market segments will help compensate. Kammann Maschinenbau – which makes systems to print on glass containers – joined the group in the third quarter, and the majority takeover Flexotecnica will be completed shortly.
The financial statements can be downloaded as a PDF file from here...
Pictured: First orders – KBA's digital press development is bearing fruit
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