MILACRON
New head of global plastics business appointed / Losses widen slightly in Q3 / Europe still soft
 Dr. Karlheinz Bourdon (Photo: Milacron) |
In a reshuffle of management responsibilities, US machinery group Milacron (Cincinnati, Ohio / USA; www.milacron.com) has named Robert K. Simpson (47) as its new president of global plastics machinery. Simpson previously was president of Siegel-Robert Automotive (www.siegelrobertautomotive.com), the automotive division of Siegel-Robert (Farmington Hills, Michigan / USA; www.srob.com), which claims to be the world´s largest metalliser of plastics components.
For the past two years, the global plastics machinery business was in the hands of Karlheinz Bourdon (47), who under the new structure has responsibility solely for injection moulding machinery. Along with Guido Re (blow moulding) and David Bertke (extrusion) he will report to Simpson. According to a statement from Milacron´s European arm, Ferromatik Milacron (Malterdingen / Germany; www.ferromatik.com), the reshuffle will enable the group to "concentrate more strongly on its individual business segments." Injection moulding accounts for half of the plastics machinery market, and due to "many important projects," the business "requires my 100% attention," Bourdon is quoted as saying.
In this year´s third quarter, Milacron´s bottom line was again negative, with the net loss rising to USD 7.2m, compared with USD 6.9m in the 2005 quarter. However, this includes restructuring expenses of USD 2.9m. The overall business situation for the US machinery group is still extremely shaky. At the end of Q3, Milacron had cash on hand of USD 36m and a further USD 36m available for borrowing from the asset-based revolving credit facility. Overall liquidity was USD 6m less than in Q2. Nevertheless, CEO Ronald D. Brown pointed to "progress on several fronts."
This progress was seen mostly in the Machinery Technologies business in North America, where sales rose to USD 22% to 106m (USD 87m) and net profit by nearly 40% to USD 6m. In Europe, machinery technology sales climbed by more than 6% to USD 40m and earnings also improved, although this business still posted a USD 700,000 loss. Incoming orders were down by almost 9% to USD 31m. For 2007, sales are budgeted to grow by 4-5%. On the whole, Milacron said, business outside Europe and North America is growing fastest.
e-Service:
Milacron interim report on the third quarter 2006 as PDF document (636 KB)
For the past two years, the global plastics machinery business was in the hands of Karlheinz Bourdon (47), who under the new structure has responsibility solely for injection moulding machinery. Along with Guido Re (blow moulding) and David Bertke (extrusion) he will report to Simpson. According to a statement from Milacron´s European arm, Ferromatik Milacron (Malterdingen / Germany; www.ferromatik.com), the reshuffle will enable the group to "concentrate more strongly on its individual business segments." Injection moulding accounts for half of the plastics machinery market, and due to "many important projects," the business "requires my 100% attention," Bourdon is quoted as saying.
In this year´s third quarter, Milacron´s bottom line was again negative, with the net loss rising to USD 7.2m, compared with USD 6.9m in the 2005 quarter. However, this includes restructuring expenses of USD 2.9m. The overall business situation for the US machinery group is still extremely shaky. At the end of Q3, Milacron had cash on hand of USD 36m and a further USD 36m available for borrowing from the asset-based revolving credit facility. Overall liquidity was USD 6m less than in Q2. Nevertheless, CEO Ronald D. Brown pointed to "progress on several fronts."
This progress was seen mostly in the Machinery Technologies business in North America, where sales rose to USD 22% to 106m (USD 87m) and net profit by nearly 40% to USD 6m. In Europe, machinery technology sales climbed by more than 6% to USD 40m and earnings also improved, although this business still posted a USD 700,000 loss. Incoming orders were down by almost 9% to USD 31m. For 2007, sales are budgeted to grow by 4-5%. On the whole, Milacron said, business outside Europe and North America is growing fastest.
e-Service:
Milacron interim report on the third quarter 2006 as PDF document (636 KB)
27.11.2006 Plasteurope.com [206863]
Published on 27.11.2006
German version of this article...