Half-Year Financial Report 2021: KSB Increases Order Intake, Sales Revenue and EBIT

Bolstered by the earnings enhancement programme at the parent company KSB SE & Co. KGaA, earnings before finance income / expense and tax (EBIT) exceeded the level of the two previous years.

Order intake in the first six months was € 1,249.0 million, up by € 136.3 million on the comparative prior-year period, which equates to an increase of 12.3 %. All the Regions contributed to this growth.

Sales revenue, which follows the order intake with a time lag, also increased significantly by € 62.7 million to € 1,111.9 million. This equates to growth of 6.0 %. Without currency translation effects, it would have been even € 33.6 million higher. The Regions Asia / Pacific and Middle East / Africa / Russia in particular saw significant double-digit growth. Europe, by far the largest Region, which had been stable in the COVID-19 year 2020, also grew by 2 % to € 610.1 million in the first half of the year. Only the Region Americas remained below the previous year as expected. Excluding currency translation effects, there would have been a noticeable increase in sales revenue in the Region Americas.

EBIT increased significantly to € 53.6 million (previous year: € 15.1 million) as a result of the higher sales revenue and lower costs. This equates to a return on sales of 4.8 %. A restructuring programme initiated at the parent company KSB SE & Co. KGaA in 2020 contri-buted to this increase in earnings.

“We are very satisfied with the first half of 2021,” says CEO Dr. Stephan Timmermann. “All our Segments and Market Areas, which we reorganised in the past year, show a positive development. At the same time, our measures to reduce costs on a sustained scale are taking effect. This allows us to look forward to the second half of the year and the future with great confidence.”

As KSB implemented a market-oriented organisation in the 2020 financial year and thus adjusted its reporting structure at the beginning of the year, comparative information can only be provided at Group level and not at segment level.