Ad-hoc release – Krones right on target in the first quarter of 2012

Krones, the world’s market leader for beverage filling and packaging technology, has got the financial year 2012 off to a good start. In the first three months of 2012, the company laid a solid foundation for achieving its sales growth target of 2 % to 4 % for 2012. First-quarter sales were up 6.9 % year-on-year to 648.6 million euros. The biggest contribution to growth came from the markets of Eastern Europe and South America.

New orders increased 5.0 % year-on-year to 659.8 million euros.
In the period from January to March 2012, Krones generated 32.5 million euros in earnings before taxes. That is 7.7 % less than the high year-earlier figure of 35.2 million euros. The pre-tax return on sales – the ratio of earnings before taxes to sales – was 5.0 % in the first quarter of 2012 (previous year: 5.8 %). Despite the slight decrease, first-quarter earnings are on target for the year 2012 as a whole. With the increasingly positive effects of the “Value” strategy programme and given the developments in the second half of 2011, the company expects earnings performance in the upcoming quarters to substantially exceed the corresponding year-earlier levels.
After taxes, Krones generated consolidated net income of 22.3 million euros in the first quarter of 2012 (year-earlier period: 24.8 million euros). Earnings per share were down from 0.82 euro to 0.74 euro.

Outlook

Looking at the development of Krones’ markets and the continuing uncertain macroeconomic outlook, Krones expects sales growth in 2012 to be a moderate 2 % to 4 %. The pre-tax return on sales, the ratio of earnings before taxes to sales, will exceed 5 % in 2012.
From today’s perspective and provided that the positive global economic trend continues, Krones expects to return to its target sales growth corridor of 5 % to 7 % on average and to further increase the return on sales in 2013.