The German printing equipment manufacturer recorded an operating profit before special items of EUR 15m (£12.7m) for the three months to 31 December 2010, up 215% on a EUR 13m loss in the same period last year.
Dirk Kaliebe, chief financial officer at Heidelberg, said: "Because sales revenues continued to grow as expected and efficiency improvements were also achieved, we generated a positive operating result before special items for the first time in the current financial year.
"Thanks to the successful capital increase in September last year and early repayment of the loan from the Special Program of the Reconstruction Loan Corporation (KfW) at the end of December, we were able to further improve our financing structure, significantly reduce our net debt, and further increase our equity ratio. All in all, we have thus created solid conditions for future refinancing."
Heidelberg also posted a modest pre-tax profit of EUR 3m and a net profit of EUR 10m for the quarter, up from a EUR 14m and EUR 11m loss respectively in the third quarter of its 2009/10 financial year.
The economic recovery was evident in the double-digit growth in Heidelberg's quarterly net sales (EUR 687m), incoming orders (EUR 684m) and order backlog (EUR 770m), which rose 18.9%, 12.3% and 23% respectively.
Net sales growth was particularly strong in EMEA, up 37.6% to EUR 258m, and Asia Pacific, up 32.6% to EUR 224m. There was a similar story in incoming order growth, where EMEA and Asia Pacific once again registered the greatest improvement, up 39.9% to EUR 273m and 29.7% to EUR 203m respectively.
Heidelberg group chief executive Bernhard Schreier said: "Thanks to stable growth in the global economy, our incoming orders increased in all regions and divisions during the third quarter. Nonetheless, the economic recovery is still marked by regional differences.
"While incoming orders are rising steadily in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, the recovery in the key US market has been slow to set in. The positive developments of the past nine months show that we are on track to achieve our target – a break-even operating result for the current financial year."
For the first nine months, Heidelberg almost halved its EUR 201m 2009 pre-tax loss to EUR 103m, while net sales of EUR 1.9bn this financial year were up 18.4% on the EUR 1.6bn recorded in 09.
