Precision injection moulding specialist Balda (Bad Oeynhausen / Germany; www.balda.de) presented disappointing results for the first half of 2006. Although sales improved by 4% to EUR 186.3m, this was below management´s expectations. EBIT fell by more than 50% to EUR 11.1m from EUR 24.5m in the 2005 period. The downturn was attributed largely to a 60% drop in business with a customer at the company´s Suzhou / China plant. No names were mentioned, but the obvious candidate is BenQ, which recently acquired the mobile phone business of Siemens. Despite the unexpected downturn, CEO Joachim Gut said management still stands by its earlier forecast of EUR 450-460 sales in full year 2006.

In Asia, the company´s new 60:40 joint venture with India´s Motherson Sumi Systems (MSSL, Noida; www.motherson.com) to produce components for mobile phone components at Chennai / India is said to be on course, despite the delay in the start of production to the fourth quarter of this year. The Asian holding company Balda Investment Singapore (BIS) is taking a 50% stake in "touch screen" specialist TPK Holding, which belongs to the family of Balda´s Asian CEO, Michael Chiang. In exchange, TPK will be able to acquire up to 40% in BIS. At Xiamen / China, TPK is building a 63,000 m² production and administration facility scheduled to become operational at the end of 2006. According to Balda CFO Volker Brinkmann, the worldwide market for touch screens is around EUR 7.5 bn with a growth rate of 15-20% annually. The market uses some EUR 760m worth of polymers annually.

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Balda report on first-half 2006 as PDF document (252 KB)