Ad-hoc | 15 May 2007 07:59
KOENIG & BAUER AG / Quarter Results
Release of an Ad hoc announcement according to § 15 WpHG, transmitted by
DGAP - a company of EquityStory AG.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
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In the first three months of the year German printing press manufacturer
Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) posted a 3% increase in group orders to €350.9m
(2006: €340.6m). While demand was soft for big newspaper and gravure web
presses, a brisk influx of orders for special presses helped boost new
bookings for web and special presses by an above-average 7.3% to €180.2m
from €167.9m. The volume of incoming orders for sheetfed presses, at
€170.7m, was roughly on a par with the previous year (€172.7m). Group sales
of €414.2m surpassed the prior-year figure of €309.4m by a substantial
33.9%. A big increase in shipments of commercial and security presses
pushed up sales of web and special presses from €146.7m to an impressive
€257.6m. However, sheetfed sales of €156.6m (2006: €162.7m) were not in
line with annual targets.
A jump in shipments reduced the volume of orders on hand from €1,072.1m
twelve months earlier to €885.4m. A €319.5m (2006: €321.7m) backlog of
orders for sheetfed presses, which have relatively short delivery
time-frames, will keep KBA’s production plants in Radebeul and Dobruška
(Czech Republic) busy until well into the second half of the year. The same
cannot be said of KBA’s web press production plants, where capacity
utilisation will fall in the second half-year following slack demand for
big newspaper and gravure presses, which shrank the backlog of orders for
web and special presses to €565.9m (2006: €750.4m).
Cost savings and a substantial improvement in sales transformed an
operating loss of €6.5m in the first quarter of 2006 into a €13.5m profit,
and a net loss of €5.3m into a net profit of €9.3m. Earnings per share of
57 cents were a big improvement on the prior-year loss of 33 cents.
Looking ahead, KBA reaffirmed its end of quarter projections that group
sales and pre-tax earnings in 2007 would be similar to last year, namely
€1.7bn and €47.4m.
DGAP 15.05.2007
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Language: English
Issuer: KOENIG & BAUER AG
Friedrich-Koenig Straße 4
97080 Würzburg Deutschland
Phone: +49 (0)931 909-4835
Fax: +49 (0)931 909-6015
E-mail: bernd.heusinger@kba-print.de
www: www.kba-print.de
ISIN: DE0007193500
WKN: 719350
Indices: SDAX
Listed: Amtlicher Markt in Frankfurt (Prime Standard), München;
Freiverkehr in Berlin-Bremen, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart
End of News DGAP News-Service
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