K&B reports lower sales, steady profits; KBA-Motteris back in the black p. 97

By: Editorial Staff

ECHOING OTHER PRESS manufacturers, Germany's Koenig & Bauer AG reported fewer sales and orders for 1993.
Sales of DM630.7 million, representing an 11.2% decline compared to 1992, was attributed "largely . . . to the transfer of all sheetfed activities" to subsidiary KBA-Paneta in 1992.
Exports declined as a percentage of sales from 53.5% to 49.4% as a result of delivery to eastern Germany of several large newspaper presses.
Orders received were 8.9% below the 1992 level. The workforce at K&B's W?rzburg and Trennfeld factories was reduced by 122 to 2,237.
The pressmaker reported "profit on ordinary activities" of DM22.5 million was up 5.2% compared with 1992, while its net income of DM9.2 million fell 6.3% below the year-earlier level.
K&B, the third largest maker of printing presses, reported that an indication of an economic upswing in the Americas, increased Southeast Asian orders and a more modest increase in eastern European orders "failed to outweigh a continued poor demand in western Europe."
It also cited a suppliers' price war to gain a share of the diminished demand.
Deliveries were dominated by large newspaper presses for new plants in eastern Germany. The company noted immediate orders from Spain and South Africa for its new KBA Comet double-width newspaper web offset press, delivery of its first anilox offset press to the U.S. and resumption of manufacturing of sheetfed gravure presses. It attributed a larger portion of sales and profits to security presses.
For the KBA group, consolidated subsidiaries Albert-Frankenthal, KBA-Planeta, Austria's Maschinenfabrik Koenig & Bauer M?dling and KBA-Motter Corp. in the U.S. accounted for more than half of total group sales.
The group's net loss for 1993 deepened to DM26.9 million from DM7.8 million in 1992, the result of a net loss at KBA Planeta that was covered by a transfer of reserves.
The group's workforce was reduced by 1,600 from the 6,569 employed in 1992. Orders received in 1993 rose slightly to DM1.128 million.
Despite more than 50% lower sales at KBA-Motter, attributed to reorganization and the recession, the U.S. subsidiary recorded a $14,500 profit on sales of $17.6 million, the first profit in several years. Big flexo press orders helped push orders more than $30 million higher than in 1992 for the York, Pa.-based company.
Despite high growth in the Far East and improving prospects in the Americas, K&B said it sees "little evidence of a radical economic upswing," noting poor demand in Germany and "restrained growth" in much of the rest of Europe. Prices, it said, are unlikely to improve owing to the industry's continuing overcapacity. For its primary markets, K&B expects to see no growth in demand much before early next year.
For this year, although it predicts "a further drop in group sales," K&B expects a company-level profit "and a significant improvement in the group result" owing to group-wide cost cutting and productivity enhancement.