KBA published its financial statements for 2014 and it seems the results are better than expected. At €1.1bn group sales were at the top end of its forecast.
The company achieved operating profit of €14.1m whille at the same time the order intake sank by 5,5%, which is the direct result of external elemnts including KBA says the positve results are mainly due to the dip in China’s grpwth and global conflicts. However China is still the biggest market for offset presses.
Initial positive impacts from the press manufacturer’s group realignment which began at the beginning of 2014.
Compared to the previous year when restructuring expenses of over €155m strained KBA’s operating result, in 2014 both its sheetfed offset segment and the web and special press division posted an operating profit.
In his letter to the shareholders Claus Bolza-Schünemann, president and CEO of the nearly 200-year-old press manufacturer, said: “We made rapid progress in the first twelve months of the most extensive realignment project in our company’s recent history and were pleased to see its positive effects earlier than anticipated.”
KBA is also looking to implement a new structure which includes shifting from functional to a divisional organisation structure to strengthen the group’s Corporate Governance system.
The fundamental goals are increased transparency, clear management responsibility and targets in all business units, no tolerance for loss-makers, no cross-subsidies as well as capital expenditure according to strategic objectives and projected returns.
The new structure will be submitted to the AGM on 21 May 2015 and could be implemented with effect from 1 January upon approval retrospectively.
On the sour note KBA sees no overall growth for the global press market in 2015 except in digital and package printing.
In digital printing KBA aims to focus more on applications with challenging materials and large substrate widths. Flexible digital press platforms were developed in 2014 with the RotaJET L and RotaJET VL.
