04.02.2005

Palfinger sales jump by 21 percent in 2004

Palfinger the market leading producer of truck loader cranes, and truck mounted work platforms has issued preliminary results for 2004. Revenues rose by almost 21 percent to €404 million a new record. Earnings before tax and Interest climbed by 61 percent to €41.5 million, 10.3 percent of revenues.
The Acquisition of Bison Stematec, now Bison Palfinger GmbH was incorporated into the Palfinger group from December , thus contributing around a million euros to 2004 revenues.

The group faced challenges in the first quarter from extensive IT system change overs and capacity scheduling, but from then on order intake and production output ran at record levels in every part of the business.

Material shortages and cost increases had an impact on margins in the first half, but efficiency improvements in the second half coupled with price increases taking effect in the fourth quarter along with the increased revenues, translated to the strong profitability improvement.

The company’s strategy to transfer component production to Bulgaria continued during 2004 with hydraulic cylinder production transferring to Tenevo. Further individual production stages will be moved to the groups Cherven Briag location in 2005 to further reduce costs.

Commenting on its expansion into the truck mounted aerial work platform market, the company stressed that it regards the move as an important step in the Group’s diversification strategy. It also restated its aim to become the European market leader in the truck-mounted aerial work platform market in the “medium term”.

In its release today Palfinger claims that with Bison it is already the market leader in Germany.

We estimate that the combined Bison/Palfinger lift business would have generated around €15 million of revenues in 2004, most of which would have come from Germany.