E-shots Web-exclusiveSupply-side financials: Engel, Husky, and Krauss-Maffei

When Engel finished its last full fiscal year on March 31, 2006, sales were close to 7% below the previous fiscal year, but the Austria-based machine maker has been busy since. During the Fakuma show in October, CEO Peter Neumann said the company had increased its European market share from 20% to 24%, and that midyear results (as of Sept. 30, 2006) show €300.2 million, which project to a 10% annualized increase over the previous year. Neumann noted good market growth in Central and Eastern Europe, and said that the electrical E-Motion machines are occupying more space in Engel’s product portfolio. They account for about 17% of present sales of machines up to 300 tons, and the growth trend is continuing. The company’s Speed line, aimed at the packaging sector, added a 280-ton unit at Fakuma and Neumann said a 380-tonner is due in April 2007. Its new large-machine factory in Shanghai will go online in May 2007, the week before the Chinaplas show in Guangzhou.

Though Husky had a positive fiscal 2006 (ended July 31, 2006) on a company-wide basis, Jeff MacDonald, the company’s VP of beverage packaging, says this was especially true for preform molds and HyPET injection molding systems. “All segments of the market performed strongly—bottled water, aseptic juices, hot-filled teas, and sports drinks all grew at double-digit rates,” he says. Supporting factors included a wider product line, improvements in post- and inmold cooling, shorter dry cycles, and hot runner tech that allowed cycle time reductions of up to 25% compared with 2003. MacDonald sees growth at both ends of the market, low volume and high cavitation, the latter exemplified by the 216-cavity mold Husky showed at NPE 2006. New applications keep coming, including many conversions from glass, metal, or paper, and MacDonald says, “PET still accounts for less than 40% of all beverage packaging, so there is lots of room to grow.”

The Krauss-Maffei Group’s fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2006 was record-setting, with sales growing by about €9 million to €560 million, and incoming orders increasing to €595 million from €542 million in the previous fiscal year. Much of the growth in orders was in injection molding, rather than in the Group’s extrusion and RIM business segments. At a press conference at the Fakuma show in October, CEO Josef Märtl said that the growth drivers were international business and success with machines for high-tech applications. He noted that demand for injection machines had been growing steadily across Europe and up and down the Americas, but market growth in Asia, including China, had slowed. A milestone for the company was the May 2006 startup of synchronized-flow assembly of its 800- to 1600-ton MX injection machines, joining the smaller CX Series in this advanced version of an assembly line. Krauss-Maffei has completed integration of the former Neureder automation business, and Märtl said the goal is a strong position as a global supplier of complete automated systems for molding.