Despite strong orders for sheetfed equipment from the Beijing and Istanbul print shows, demand for commercial and newspaper web presses remains slow, KBA says.

However, in recent weeks newspaper printers from Germany and France have ordered new presses, and business with security printing presses has “returned to normal” and other niche markets and the service business showed positive developments.

At its 88th annual meeting in Würzburg, Germany, president and chief executive Claus Bolza-Schünemann (right) painted a mixed picture, and said consolidation and realignment of the company was continuing.

Group order intake after five months came to 362 million Euros, 25 per cent down on last year’s figure which was boosted by the DRUPA trade show. At the end of May order backlog of 614.5 million was 28 per cent lower than 2012.

The race is on to catch up, with hopes of matching last year’s 1,293.9 million Euros sales with a different product structure. A slight decline in web offset and security printing sales is expected, and the sheetfed strategy is now less volume-orientated. Management see a need for further consolidation in the web business, which continues to be affected by slow market demand below expectations, Bolza-Schünemann says. Shareholders should prepare themselves for similar group pre-tax earnings to last year instead of the moderate increase originally planned.

Figures for the first half-year will be published on August 9.

Staff numbers have been cut by 100 to 6156. Some 2000 jobs have been lost group-wide over the past four years, but further measures “as necessary” are planned given the disappointing web press market.

Bolza-Schünemann says he is not satisfied with the 2.3 million Euros group profit: “It must be noted that KBA is the only large press manufacturer to have remained in the black operationally and after interest for the fourth year in a row despite considerable restructuring expenses and a substantial value adjustment to fixed assets in our sheetfed division.

“We know that there is room for improvement and we are pushing forward in many areas to increase profitability”. Planned measures include cost-saving in group purchasing, administration and production, as well as a price increase for sheetfed offset presses.

The first KBA RotaJet 76 digital press was sold a few days before the annual meeting, and “many projects” for it are soon to be finalised. Bolza-Schünemann says along with books, direct mail and advertising segments, KBA has “unexpectedly received great interest from newspaper printers and users from other areas”.