K-Tron cuts staff, freezes wages

(Pitman, NJ) has initiated a company-wide wage freeze and will cut its workforce by 43, reducing staff at two locations in the U.S. and one in Switzerland. In a March 9 announcement of earnings, K-Tron Chairman and CEO Edward B. Cloues II said the company’s fourth quarter revenues were the best ever, with record operating income and income before taxes, but added that there was a “rapid deterioration in all major economies of the world” in recent months and that many of its customers, particularly those in the plastics industry served by its Process Group, were “adversely impacted by reduced demand for their products.”

The best-ever fourth quarter was fueled in part by the fact that K-Tron entered the final three months of 2008 with a near-record order backlog of $74.0 million. Weak bookings in December pushed the order backlog at year-end down to $68.108 million, down nearly 8% from the end of the third quarter and off 3.7% from 2007's year-end order backlog of $70.712 million.

K-Tron, which company-wide saw Q4 revenues rise 11.4% to $65.779 million, also serves the food, pharmaceutical, and power-generation industries. For the full year of 2008, K-Tron achieved record revenues of $243.018 million, up 20.5% from 2007’s $201.677 million. —[email protected]