KBA, which has now rebranded itself as Koenig & Bauer, has published its interim results for the third quarter of this year. These show a 4 percent rise in orders to €903m and a slight 2 percent increase in revenue to €848m.
The figures generally show a mixed picture. Thus the Sheetfed segment showing order intake up by 11 percent to €480.3m in comparison with the Q3 2016 figures of €429.8m. This was largely due to demand in the packaging sector. Revenue was up 7 percent to €474.7m over the 2016 results, which combined with lower sosts and increases in service revenue led to profits of €20.3m, up from the previous Q3 of €17.3m.
However, the digital and web segment saw order intake drop from €128.5m to €111.1m, which saw revenue drop 8.8 percent to €113.2m, mainly down to fewer sales in newspaper and commercial web offset presses.
But there was good news in the form of growth in the service business and the company has also taken the first order for its newly developed digital CorruJet sheetfed press, which is aimed at the growing market for digital corrugated printing.
On the other hand, the working capital was successfully reduced though the cash flow fell from €-5m to €-24.6m. the company also had to pay instalments of €37.4m for the external funding of a part of the pension provisions.
Nonetheless, the company is optimistic that it can hit its targets for this year. CEO Claus Bolza-Schünemann commented: “The numerous press deliveries and service orders in the fourth quarter will trigger a surge in revenue and earnings. In view of this business concentration, which is challenging due to the high capacity utilisation but not unusual, we expect an organic growth of up to €1.25bn in group revenue and an EBIT margin of around 6% in 2017.”
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