Revenue declined throughout the year, from EUR140.4m in the first quarter, to EUR128.8m in Q2 and EUR118.7m in the most recent quarter. The company says it has ‘been able to optimise its costs through a strict package of measures’, seeing a consistent increase in EBITDA despite the fall in revenues: from EUR2m, to EUR2.9m, and then to EUR4.9m in the third quarter. EBIT also improved through the year, from a loss of EUR3.2m in the first quarter to a loss of EUR0.5m in the third.
The coverage of the knuckleboom sector was stark. In the first nine months, Palfinger said ‘the business recorded almost zero sales in the Spanish, British, Italian, Irish, Greek and Russian markets, and noticeable declines in the two largest markets of France and Germany’. However, the company said it has seen sustainable signs of recovery in the US since the beginning of the year and that South America has recently been ‘unexpectedly stable’. Since the second quarter, all markets have shown ‘signs of stabilisation at a very low level’.
In the first three quarters, Palfinger reported crane segment sales of EUR208m, compared to EUR399m in 2008. EBIT stood at a loss of EUR0.8m, down from EUR75.5m; and the segment result was EUR1.3m, down from EUR79m.
The company said it has extended short-time work at its Austrian sites, launched at the start of 2009, into March 2010. Other measures are being taken at other sites. The company says it is making staffing-related decisions on the basis of the strategic perspective of a subsequent recovery and deliberately accepting over-capacities.