CEO Dr. Markus Flik points out that around Euro 11 million of sales revenue stems from the takeover of all the voting shares in Stiles Machinery, Inc., effective as of February 3, 2014. “We have acquired the leading sales and service organization for machines and production lines for the US woodworking industry. It is on a growth path, just like the overall US market. This direct market access allows us to play an active role in the re-industrialization process in the US and benefit from the growth there even more profoundly.”
Even without the Stiles acquisition, the Homag Group’s sales revenue would have seen a significant rise of around 10%. The Stiles acquisition does not have any impact on order intake. Dr. Flik adds, “the strong order intake in the first quarter reflects our strong presence in Asia and North America.”
The Group also succeeded in further improving its results of operations in the first three months of 2014 “although, after balancing up all effects seen in the first quarter, the acquisition of Stiles burdens the profit for the period with a total of Euro 1.5 million,” a fact emphasized by CFO Hans-Dieter Schumacher.
Operative EBITDA before employee participation expenses and before extraordinary expenses improved nevertheless by just over 13% to Euro 15.1 million (prior year: Euro 13.4 million). A fall in the tax expense ratio to 36% (prior year: 47%) increased net profit for the period after non-controlling interests to Euro 2.5 million (prior year: Euro 1.8 million).