Creo Products has announced a profits warning for the fourth quarter due to the slowdown of the worldwide economy.

It expects to show a loss of between 3.5m and 7m ($5m-$10m) on sales down 3m on its original estimate of around 104m.

The figures exclude one-time restructuring costs of 2.8m related to the 200 redundancies already announced. It also excludes 263m of other one-time write-downs, some of which are attributed to the decline in the imagesetters market.

Year-end figures are expected to show adjusted earnings in the range of 16m-19m.

The fall in sales was mainly attributable to the slowdown in the US.

"In general, Europe is in line with expectations," said European managing director Alon Lumbroso.

Over the next few years CreoScitex Europe aims to increase its market share, which is about 20% below its share of the US market. It is increasing its sales and customer service teams in Europe by around 10%.

It recently appointed three new sales people in the UK, including ex-Fuji staff Nick Frost and Adrian Rowe. Ex-Closed Loop Colour director Graham McLachlan joined as sales executive for Scotland and the North West. Two replaced Martin Mayo and Colin Price, who moved to Turning Point Technologies, while one was a new position. It has also appointed Darren Yeates to its technical sales support team. He joins from CreoScitex Australia.

* Belgian pre-press workflow firm Artwork Systems has sued CreoScitex at the US district court in Delaware to invalidate four patents related to trapping software. The case followed the firms failure to reach agreement over licence fees payable to CreoScitex.

Story by Barney Cox