Machinery manufacturing group Milacron (Cincinnati, Ohio / USA; www.milacron.com) has reported improved earnings and sales in the first six months of 2008. The company said that thanks to aggressive restructuring and other cost-cutting actions, operating earnings in the second quarter of 2008 more than doubled year-on-year to USD 6.5m from USD 2.6m. Earnings in the first half reached USD 8.0m (USD 0.6m in the same period of 2007).

Sales in Q2 reached almost USD 216m (USD 197m), with the machinery and mould technologies segments accounting for USD 180m (USD 165m) of this. The remainder came from the industrial fluids segment. Taken together with Q1, Milacron posted sales in the first half of the year of USD 419m (USD 388m), of which USD 352m (USD 326m) was plastics machinery.

Europe was responsible for approximately four fifths of the increase in sales thanks to exchange rate gains, with North America and mould technologies moving up only very slightly. On the other hand, this picture was not reflected in the operating result, which totalled USD 12.3m (USD 5.3m) for the first half-year. Despite the positive effect of the exchange rate on the European business, Milacron earnings grew far more strongly in the machinery technologies North America segment to reach USD 10.8m (USD 6.7m) in the first six months. In Europe, the figures improved marginally from an operating loss of USD 900,000 in the first half of 2007 to reach balance. Consequently, the net loss fell from USD 15m to USD 8.2m.

A significant decline in incoming orders in both North America and Europe could be interpreted as a pointer towards weaker business in the second half of the year – especially in view of the sluggish economy, particularly in the USA.