Tuesday, 29. July 2008 Ad hoc: R. STAHL publishes key data on the first half of 2008
The group remains on growth course - operational EBT 30% above previous year's level, sales and order intake remain lively
Waldenburg, 29 July 2008 - The explosion protection specialist R. STAHL group realised EUR 13.0 million in pre-tax earnings (EBT) in the first six months of 2008. Last year's comparable figure of EUR 11.5 million included a non-recurrent profit of EUR 1.5 million from divesting the group's IT activities. Adjusted for this effect, EBT advanced 30% year-on-year. The pre-tax return on sales came to 11.6% for the first half of 2008.
Order intake at EUR 116.7 million exceed sales revenue of EUR 111.7 million by EUR 5 million in the first half of this year. Several large-scale orders in the first half of 2007 extraordinarily boosted order intake that then resulted in unusually high sales revenue in the second half of 2007. Due to this distortion in the comparative base, order intake only rose 5% in the reporting period while sales revenue leapt 14.9%.
As of 30 June 2008, orders on hand had advanced by another EUR 5.7 million to EUR 44.2 million since the end of 2007.
R. STAHL expects demand for its products to remain strong in the international arena. Last year's capital spending frenzy in the wake of burgeoning oil prices has calmed down somewhat. Demand has now stabilised at a reasonable growth level.
Thanks to this gratifying business development and favourable demand situation, management confirms its guidance for fiscal 2008 as a whole. The 2008 guidance remains at consolidated sales of EUR 220-230 million up from EUR 211.6 million in 2007. Pre-tax earnings are to reach at least 10% of sales revenue and earnings per share are to rise further.
R. STAHL will publish detailed figures for the first half of fiscal 2008 on 11 August 2008.
Contact:
R. STAHL AG
Communication / Investor relations
Judith Schäuble
Am Bahnhof 30, D-74638 Waldenburg, Germany
Phone: +49 (7942) 943-1217, Fax: +49 (7942) 943-1364
e-mail: judith.schaeuble@stahl.de