Koenig & Bauer Publishes Q3 2020 Report

As in many industries, the COVID-19 pandemic, which is worsening again in most countries over the past few weeks, has left clear traces on the course of business in the Koenig & Bauer group.

In Q3 2020, order intake was down 13.8% at €232.6 million and revenue was down 32.2% at €198.1 million year-on-year.

In the first three quarters of 2020, new orders of €712.8 million were below the previous year’s figure of €843 million by 15.4%, although this was better than the general sector figures for printing presses published by industry association VDMA, which dropped by 26.8% in the same period. Cumulative revenue came to €602.6 million in the first nine months of 2020 (2019: €798.2 million).

On balance, an EBIT of –€61.3 million is reported for Q3. However, EBIT adjusted for one-offs improved substantially from –€34.9 million in Q1 and –€10.2 million in Q2 to –€2.2 million in Q3. Despite the lower effects from short-time working compared with Q2, the adjusted EBIT almost reached the break-even threshold in Q3.

At €20.8 million and €26.9 million, respectively, cash flows from operating activities and free cash flow were in distinctly positive territory in Q3 2020, improving significantly over the same quarter of the previous year (–€27.7 million and –€39 million, respectively).

In addition to new developments for security printing, investments in direct corrugated board and digital printing as well as the joint venture with the Durst Group are being advanced as part of the Performance 2024 program.

The Sheetfed segment achieved a robust order intake of €128.6 million in Q3 (Q3 2019: €132 million). Despite the substantial gains with large-format sheetfed offset presses and folder gluers, order intake in the first three quarters declined by 9.9% over the previous year’s figure of €462.6 million to €416.6 million particularly as a result of lower orders for medium- and half-format presses.

Driven by sales successes with RotaJET presses and HP machines, the Digital & Web segment achieved encouraging order intake of €34.1 million in Q3 (Q3 2019: €18.1 million). Order intake in the first three quarters came to €90.8 million, down from €108 million in the previous year, due to lower orders in the web offset press business and for flexible packaging printing.

Order intake in the Special segment of €82.8 million in Q3 and €233.5 million in the first nine months was below the previous year’s figures of €131.4 million and €306.7 million, respectively.

“In addition to boosting efficiency and scaling the group to the moderate growth expected in the next few years to group revenue of around €1.3 billion after the completion of the four-year program, it aims to strengthen our competitiveness in the long term,” said president and CEO Claus Bolza-Schünemann. “By continuing and accelerating all innovation processes, product and process developments, annual cost savings of over €100m should increasingly be achieved until 2024.”