Krones increases sales and earnings in the first quarter
Sales were up 17.9 percent on the same quarter last year, reaching EUR 595.2 million. Order bookings climbed 9.0 percent to EUR 607.3 million. On 31 March 2008, Krones’ order backlog totalled EUR 903.0 million, 13.0 percent up on the previous year.
In its first quarter statement published 29 April, Krones reported that earnings before taxes (EBT) rose 26.3 percent to EUR 45.6 million. The EBT margin thus improved from 7.1 percent to 7.7 percent. Profits after taxes were up 34.1 percent at EUR 30.7 million, with earnings per share increasing to EUR 0.98 from EUR 0.72.
In the long term, Krones hopes to achieve an annual increase in revenues of between 5 percent and 10 percent. In view of a good first quarter, the Executive Board anticipates that sales growth in 2008 will be close to the upper end of the forecast corridor and that revenues will exceed EUR 2.3 billion.
Krones aims to improve the return on sales before taxes (EBT margin) still further in 2008 (last year: 7.1 percent). As the company is to benefit from the reform of Germany’s corporate tax laws, earnings after taxes will show a higher increase than the pre-tax profits.
