The group’s order intake decrease by 13.4 percent, mainly caused by huge drops in the pulp & paper (-14 percent) and metals (-25.4 percent) business. However theEBITA rose by 38.6% to 184.9 million Euro (H1 2014: 133.4 million Euro). According to the group, this development is mainly due to the hydro and pulp & paper business areas, which achieved a substantial increase in profitability compared to the previous year’s reference period.
Wolfgang Leitner, President and CEO of Andritz: “In view of the unchanged difficult economic environment, we are satisfied with the business development in the first half of 2015. However, project and investment activity has slowed down in some of our end markets, in some cases substantially, and this activity has also become increasingly volatile. Hence, we shall continue the structural measures already implemented in the past few years in order to adapt our value chain to these changed market conditions and thus increase our flexibility.”
Based on the current project activity in the Andritz business areas and on the order backlog as of the end of June 2015, Andritz currently expects an increase in sales and net income for the 2015 business year compared to the previous year.