Alfa Laval posts strong results, predicts better to come
The Swedish engineering giant hailed a continuing increase in year-on-year demand in the three months to the end of June 2011 and predicted the trend would carry on into Q3.
The upswing in performance for the company, which sells heat transfer, separation and fluid handling technologies, was felt across all its business segments and geographies.
Operating profit increased to SEK 1.34bn (€1.45m), while net sales jumped by almost a quarter to SEK 7bn and orders leapt by 32 per cent to SEK 7.4bn.
Emerging markets
In the first six months of 2011, orders in emerging markets all grew strongly year-on-year. Latin America led the way on 51 per cent, closely followed by a 49 per cent order increase in Asia. Russian orders rose by 45 percent, North America 32 per cent and Western Europe by just over a quarter.
The fast growing regions Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia accounted for 50 percent of the order intake for the Group, said Lars Renström, company president and CEO.
High energy prices had seen an investment surge in renewable energy technology, he added.
Food Technology reported “very good development”, said the firm.
“At the same time strong growth was noted for Food Technology from breweries as well as vegetable oil plants in the fast growing regions of the world,” said Renström who has previously highlighted the growing importance of the Indian market.
The company also pinpointed Brazil as a major growth driver in brewing equipment. Earlier this month it announced it had secured an order for SEK 135m for equipment from “one of the largest global brewery groups” at the end of June, with delivery scheduled for the end of the year.
Outlook
The Alfa Laval chief also expects demand to continue on an upward trend – highlighting its food segment as helping to drive growth.
“We expect demand during the third quarter 2011 to be higher than the third quarter of 2010,” he said. "Secondly, we expect continued good demand from food and pharma markets benefiting sanitary and food segments and finally we expect the high activity level in segment Process Industry to continue."
