Richard Timson, the newly apointed managing director of Heidelberg Australia & New Zealand, told ProPrint: “Asia-Pacific as a region is going along very well and on target to achieve its goals for the year.
“Australia and New Zealand is also on track to achieve its targets. We’re setting our budgets for next year and are quite optimistic we’ll achieve those as well.”
Heidelberg’s new chief executive, Gerold Linzbach, said he was confident the company would also meet its global targets.
“Development in the industry continues to be stable and demand for our products is robust,” he said.
One of the main targets outlined at the start of the year was to achieve a “clearly positive” operating result excluding special items in 2012-13, rising to a €150 million operating profit excluding special items in 2013-14.
[Related: Heidelberg sells 18 Speedmasters in ANZ]
Heidelberg declined to quantify what the company meant by “clearly positive”; however, the manufacturer faces an uphill struggle given the scale of its €57 million first-half loss, which has left it needing to more than double last year’s €24 million second-half EBIT just to break even.
Company spokesman Thomas Fichtl said Heidelberg was confident it would reach its target through volume sales and cost savings. He also said the company expected higher volume sales this year as a result of Drupa.
Although in the last Drupa year (2008-09) Heidelberg only made €11.4 million in the second half, Fichtl said it did not make sense to predict similar results this year.
“That was the year the Lehman Brothers collapsed, the whole industry was affected. But the economy is largely stable now – there’s no reason to expect this year will be the same,” he added.
Although Drupa was responsible for higher spending in the first half, Fichtl said it would result in “much higher” volume sales, 60% of which he expects during the second half.
Heidelberg has committed itself to making savings of €180 million by 2014 by increasing efficiency and reducing staff by 2,000. Fichtl said the company hoped to make a third of these savings this year, mainly in the second half.
This article originally appeared at printweek.com
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