Order levels improved by 25 per cent over the first nine months, to €2.1bn, while sales also continued to improve in the third quarter, reaching the highest level for the current financial year at €687m.

After nine months, total sales amounted to €1.88bn – an improvement of 18 per cent on the previous year’s €1.6bn. Meanwhile, the order backlog of the Heidelberg Group increased to €770m in the third quarter.

Bernhard Schreier, CEO of Heidelberg says, “Thanks to stable growth in the global economy, our incoming orders increased in all regions and divisions during the third quarter. Nonetheless, the economic recovery is still marked by regional differences. While incoming orders are rising steadily in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, the recovery in the key US market has been slow to set in.

“The positive developments of the past nine months show that we are on track to achieve our target – a break-even operating result for the current financial year.”

Also commenting, Dirk Kaliebe, CFO of Heidelberg said because sales revenues continued to grow as expected and efficiency improvements were also achieved, the company generated a positive operating result before special items for the first time in the current financial year.

Kaliebe says, “Thanks to the successful capital increase in September last year and early repayment of the loan from the Special Programme of the Reconstruction Loan Corporation (KfW) at the end of December, we were able to further improve our financing structure, significantly reduce our net debt, and further increase our equity ratio.”

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