Koenig & Bauer has noticed a return of confidence in its customers with growth in orders during Q3. This applied across the board led by sheetfed presses, but including web, digital and special presses. Overall orders for the year now stand at €978.6 million, compared to €712.8 million after nine months of 2020. Sales also increased so that after three quarters of the year, Koenig & Bauer has achieved an Ebit of €16.7 million (€74.1 million loss).
This increase in Ebit is in part attributable to the successful implementation of its P24X efficiency programme, which achieved the savings target for the whole of 2021 by the end of September. The company’s free cashflow position has returned to the status before lockdown, while the final result for the year will have Koenig & Bauer showing a profit, albeit at a 2% margin on sales of €1,100-1,135 million.
Orders in the sheetfed sector increased by 35.5%, mostly from carton and label printers. “This shows that our customers’ reticence is beginning to fade in many areas,” chief executive Andreas Pleßke says in the letter to shareholders. “Nevertheless, some new investments are being postponed due to the uncertainty surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic.”
This has dogged the digital and webfed segment for most of the year, though in Q3 there were tentative signs of a recovery, led by orders for five large CorruCut print and die cutting presses for corrugated board as the beta period for this machine came to an end in July.
The special presses division, which covers banknote printing, metal decoration, direct to shape and coding, noted a 54% increase in the order intake. The company says that “this indicates that banknote has retained its rightful face as a means of payment, especially in the pandemic, and will also remain relevant in the virtual world,” says the statement.
The company also celebrates the introduction of the VariJet 106, its inkjet press for carton printing. It joins the Corrujet inkjet presses for corrugated board and the Rotajet, used for books, interior decoration and potentially for flexible packaging. It is currently the only printing press manufacturer to offer this range of digital, as well as analogue presses.
Says Pleßke: “Our customers’ decisions to opt for a VariJet, Rotajet or CorruCut, for example, show that our focus on growth markets, such as digital folding box, beverage carton and decor printing, as well as corrugated printing, is paying off. More than ever before, our customers’ purchasing decisions are being guided by efforts to optimise their ‘total cost of process’.”
