New Management Team to Bring Gurit back to Sustained Profitability

October 30, 2007 | by Gurit-Heberlein AG

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October 30, 2007, Gurit (SWX Swiss Exchange: GUR), a leading developer and manufacturer of high-end composite materials and technologies, increased sales in the first nine months of 2007 by 19.6% to CHF 335 million. Compared with this dynamic sales development, profitability however clearly lags behind: Gurit expects a negative EBIT for the second half-year of 2007. With a new sales target of CHF 440 million, Gurit expects to achieve at best a balanced earnings statement for the full year. After the repositioning of Gurit and its alignment to global growth markets led by Jouni Heinonen, a new management team has been established with Rudolf Hadorn as Chief Executive Officer to bring Gurit back to sustained profitability. Jouni Heinonen will leave the Group. Gurit Holding AG


Wattwil, October 30, 2007. The expansion of the production sites in Canada, Spain and China will – against prior expectations – again impact Group earnings in the second half of the year. After the massive raw material cost increases, Gurit has renegotiated a series of sales contracts with higher selling prices. These increases will, however, only strengthen profitability substantially in 2008.

Gurit thus expects to achieve a negative operational EBIT for the second half of 2007 and at best a balanced operational result for the full year.

Change in Management to sustainably strengthen profitability.

The existing management team led by Jouni Heinonen has positioned Gurit as a leading supplier of high-end composites in global growth markets. As from November 1, 2007, a new management team led by Rudolf Hadorn as Chief Executive Officer and Markus Knuesli as Chief Financial Officer is to bring Gurit operationally and financially back to sustainable profitability. The target is to establish an organization which is able to sustainably leverage the Group’s substantial growth potential. As announced in April 2007, Markus Knuesli has already taken on the position of Chief Financial Officer.

Continued sales growth

Gurit reports a sales increase of 20.4% to CHF 111 million for the third quarter. This translates into a sales increase of 19.6% to CHF 355 million for the first nine months. Sales related to Wind Energy applications grew by 40% to CHF 187 million in the first nine months. This represents 56% of Group sales. With CHF 45 million, sales to Transportation (13.5% of sales) markets were 2% below last year’s figure for the first nine months. Shipments to Marine, Sport & Civil Engineering markets were 1% below last year’s figure and stood at CHF 92 million for the first nine months.

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Source: Gurit-Heberlein AG, Press release