The tide has turned for Koenig & Bauer’s finances despite the background of the uncertain economic situation. It has reported a €16.0 million operating Ebit for Q3 compared to a loss of €0.1 million for the same period last year.
This comes with an 8% increase in revenue to €310.5 million (€287.6 million) and a fall in new orders to €249.9 million (€346.6 million). This is not unexpected the company says as last year’s figure was boosted by a large currency press order from the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing and also showed some benefit from Drupa business. Removing the Banknote Solutions order leaves a 3.5% drop in revenue for the quarter.
The year to date numbers show the same effect: revenue is up at €860.9 million (€819.5 million), operating Ebit is at €6.4 million (a loss of €31.2 million) and incoming orders falling back to €856.8 million (€988.1 million).
The fall in orders is also due to ongoing tariff conflicts, particularly harming demand for its digital presses where the US is the largest market. However, new orders in the paper and packaging sheetfed systems are almost at the same level after nine months as in 2024, €500.3 million (€511.7 million).
It has an order backlog of €420.2 million at the end of the quarter.
In the special and new technologies segment orders dropped as a result of last year’s currency press orders, because of the challenges in selling its digital presses in the US and balanced by growth in orders for metal packaging, coding and marking and the Kammann glass bottle business. The coding division has been put up for sale, but there is no news about progress to this end.
The tariff situation continues to evolve and is being closely monitored. Most products are subject to a tariff of 15%, but some products identified as derivatives of steel, aluminium and copper and include flexo presses and a large number of spare parts for presses, incur a 50% tariff. The concern is that this category may be widened to cover more Koenig & Bauer products.
The company says it is on course to achieve its sales target of €1.3 billion for the year and an Ebit between €350 million. Its longer term target is sales of €1.5 billion at an Ebit margin of 5-6%.
