Drupa had a big impact on the three months to 30 June at the group. Heidelberg cited “restrained investment” ahead of the show, which it had expected, but reported high demand at the exhibition itself.
The €10m spend was still around half of the group’s previous outlay on Drupa. “We stripped back our presence to focus on our new equipment in digital and autonomous printing, and showcased our traditional equipment at Wiesloch instead which saved us a lot of money,” said a spokesman. “That €10m investment gave us a very broad reach.”
Incoming orders jumped by more than €100m on the equivalent period in the prior year, to €804m, while the order backlog increased to €768m from €638m.
Chief executive Gerold Linzbach, who will step down from the role next year, described the first quarter as “a solid start”. He said that the sales booked at Drupa showed that the firm was “on the right track” following the realignment of its offering.
Heidelberg unveiled the Primefire 106 B1 inkjet press, which it jointly developed with Fujifilm, at the show and made sales of the model to customers in Europe, the US, Japan, China and Brazil. It plans to ship the first press to a packaging printer by the end of this year.
Its flagship Speedmaster XL 106 was the best-seller at the expo, and Heidelberg said long-perfecting models and presses for packaging printers were “in particular demand”.
Actual sales in the period were down by 13.7% to €486m. EBITDA prior to exceptionals fell from €46m to €1m, and the firm posted a net loss for the quarter of €37m (2015 loss: €4m).
Sales at Heidelberg Equipment were down by €62m to €215m, while sales in Heidelberg Services (encompassing consumables, post-press and used machinery) slipped by €14m to €270m “due to a small decline in the top line across those operations”.
As well as the Drupa spend, Heidelberg had to absorb higher personnel costs because of its collective wage agreement. The previous year figures also included a one-off gain of €19m following its acquisition of consumables supplier PSG.
It also repaid its 2011 corporate bond early, which enabled it to reduce overall leverage. Net debt reduced from €281m at the end of the prior quarter to €263m.
Heidelberg is targeting sales growth of 4% for the full year with EBITDA margins of between 7%-10%.
Chief financial officer Dirk Kaliebe said the group remained on the acquisition trail, and wanted to strengthen its business model “through targeted acquisitions”.
“We want to grow this year too, and achieve a moderate increase in net profit after taxes,” he said.
The group’s share price fell by 4.05% to €2.51 on the news.
