15/05/2009 - 06:43 PM
The Homag Group AG saw a weak first quarter of 2009. The management board of the world’s leading manufacturer of plant and machinery for the woodworking industry, which is listed on the SDAX, attributes this to the persistently poor economic situation and the great reluctance on the part of companies in the industry to invest. The order intake of EUR 75 million between January and March 2009 represented a substantial drop on what had admittedly been an extremely strong first quarter of 2008 (EUR 232 million).

Compared to the order intake in the fourth quarter of 2008 of EUR 77 million, there was however no further decrease, which leads CEO Dr. Joachim Brenk to conclude that "the economy has presumably bottomed out”. The order backlog as of March 31, 2009 stood at EUR 144 million compared to EUR 312 million at the end of the first quarter of 2008 and EUR 164 million at year-end 2008. Due to the poor order intake, the sales revenue of the Homag Group fell to EUR 119 million (prior year: EUR 227 million) and total operating performance dropped to EUR 128 million (prior year: EUR 240 million).

Besides savings on trade fairs and advertising and on variable costs, the headcount was reduced in the last two quarters from 5,404 as of September 30, 2008 to 5,152 employees at the end of the first quarter of 2009. The number of contract workers was also reduced by 330. However, the 235 employees of BENZ GmbH Werkzeugsysteme, in which a majority shareholding was taken over at the beginning of the year, have to be added to the total. According to CFO Andreas Hermann, other measures to calibrate the headcount to capacity such as forced leave, the reduction of accrued overtime and of provisions for vacation and non-working shifts have already cut personnel costs including the cost of contract workers compared to the first quarter of 2008 by around EUR 13 million. In addition, to the savings on other operating expenses, costs have been reduced by around EUR 24 million.

(Homag)