Agfa Graphics has released its 2015 Q2 results, reporting a 2.9 per cent revenue growth but EBIDTA dipped by more than 30 per cent.
Christian Reinaudo, president and CEO of the Agfa-Gevaert Grou
Christian Reinaudo, president and CEO of the Agfa-Gevaert Group, says: “The results were helped by the weaker Euro, and based on the good performance of the inkjet segment, Agfa Graphics was able to reverse the downward revenue trend.”
However, in the prepress segment, he says the digital computer-to-plate (CTP) business suffered from competitive pressure. The analogue computer-to-film (CTF) business continued to decline. Overall, the Agfa Graphics business group also continued to feel the effects of the softness in the emerging markets and the political instability in certain regions.”
He says the company’s efficiency projects were not able to fully offset the adverse raw material and competitive pressure effects, the business group’s gross profit margin decreased from 28.5 percent of revenue in the second quarter of 2014 to 28.1 percent. He adds, “Recurring EBITDA amounted to $31.8m (5.7 percent of revenue). Recurring EBIT reached $19.9m (3.6 percent of revenue).
“In the field of inkjet, the ink portfolio for industrial applications and the new Jeti Mira and Jeti Tauro wide format print engines started to contribute to the business group’s top line. In the field of prepress, Agfa Graphics signed a number of eye-catching contracts with commercial print companies including Daeryuk Can (South Korea), Impresos Específicos (Mexico), Gulf News (United Arab Emirates) and Caxton (South Africa).”
He sees positive signs in the first three months of the year, confirmed in the second quarter. He says, “This strengthens our belief that we are on the right track to reach the targets we expressed when we published our full year 2014 results. Based on the strong performances of our main growth engines and helped by the weaker Euro, we were able to post significant revenue growth. I trust that in the medium term a revenue of Euro3bn is achievable. Largely due to our successful efficiency programs, we were able to bring our gross profit margin above 33 per cent of revenue for the first time in five years. It is also clear that we are well on our way to achieving a recurring EBITDA percentage close to 10 per cent of revenue in 2015.”
