Sheetfed boost for KBA

KBAs sheetfed operations have fared better in the first half of 2002 than its web business, which will suffer further in the second half of the year unless the economy revives.

Group sales rose 10.4% to 435.6m (euro 685.8m) in the first six months, but net income fell 26.2% to 5.9m.

Sales in the sheetfed sector rose 13.7% to 223.8m, while sales of web presses were up 7.1% to 211.8m.

But the groups order intake for the period was down 26.6%, while the order intake for web presses fell 43.5%.

KBA president Reinhart Siewert did not expect the newspaper and commercial print markets to improve until 2003.

Story by John Davies