Group revenue rose by 6.7% year-on-year to €313.9m (£276m) between July and September 2022. Sequentially, K&B said growth was even stronger, with revenue climbing by 31.7% compared to Q1 and by 23.9% compared to Q2.
The Sheetfed and Digital & Webfed segments particularly contributed to this performance.
At €805.7m, cumulative group revenue exceeded the previous year’s figure by 2.3%. The share of revenue attributable to service business increased to 32.2% from 29.9% at the same stage last year.
The company also achieved EBIT of €10.8m in Q3, up from the previous year figure of €10.3m. It said this improvement is particularly evident in a comparison with the first quarter, in which EBIT stood at a loss of €8.5m, and the second quarter with an EBIT loss of €5.3m.
Cumulatively, this has resulted in EBIT loss of €3m, compared to previous year EBIT of €16.7m. K&B said the previous year’s figure had on balance been boosted by roughly €21.3m “thanks to the more efficient implementation of the personnel measures under P24x”.
The group posted a net loss of €11m as of 30 September 2022, compared to a previous year net profit of €5.5m at the nine-month mark.
Order intake after nine months came to €1.026bn, 4.8% up on the figure of €978.6m reported in the previous year. At €333m, customer demand also remained solid in the third quarter. Accordingly, order backlog increased by 24.8% over the previous year to €1.027bn as of 30 September 2022.
K&B said it is still caught between high order backlogs on one hand and several adverse factors, mainly on the supply side, on the other.
“Our flexibility and creativity – including in conjunction with our suppliers – are having an impact, as we have learned to deal more effectively with the exceptional situation over the past few months,” said Koenig & Bauer chief executive officer Andreas Pleßke.
“Following the strong order intake in the first half of 2022, customer demand is still very solid and we are pleased to be able to tap new areas of business with the latest digital and sustainable solutions, thus offering our customers added value.”
For the full-year, Koenig & Bauer now expects to report operating EBIT of between €15m and €20m and an operating EBIT margin of between 1.3% and 1.7% on group revenue of between €1.16bn and €1.19bn.
It said this forecast assumes that there are no further setbacks or tightened restrictions compared with the current situation as a result of the war in Ukraine, the availability of energy supplies, the disruptions to global supply chains, and the efforts to contain the pandemic.
K&B’s share price rose steadily by nearly 15% since the announcement yesterday to €15.68 this morning, but stood at €15.42 at the time of writing (52-week high: €32.65, low: €10.76).
