(ABM FN-Dow Jones) TKH Group has had a weak first quarter, as expected. This emerged from an update from the Haaksbergen company on Monday morning.
Group turnover and EBITA have fallen, in line with TKH’s expectations. Turnover fell organically by 4.3 percent to 421 million euros and EBITA, excluding one-off items, even fell by more than 21 percent to 41.2 million euros.
In an explanation, TKH spoke of costs that had to be incurred for new factories and the return of stocks by customers.
Return on sales fell from 12.8 percent in the first three months of 2023 to 9.8 percent last quarter.
The order book did increase slightly, from 970 million euros at the end of 2023 to just over one billion euros at the end of March.
The Smart Vision division had a difficult basis for comparison. In the first quarter of 2023, turnover in this branch increased by 14.4 percent, but last quarter turnover actually fell organically by 12.4 percent. ING had expected a decline in turnover of 5.6 percent. TKH expects a return to growth in the second half of the year.
TKH also struggled with a difficult comparison basis and divestments at Connectivity. Here turnover fell by 13.4 percent. ING expected a decline in turnover of 16 percent. The company is cautious about the prospects for this segment, but it believes it can achieve an autonomous increase in turnover and EBITA in 2024.
When publishing its annual figures earlier this year, TKH announced that the Vision and Connectivity divisions were struggling with weak demand in the end markets due to the reduction of inventories.
Regarding Manufacturing, TKH said at the time that it was counting on revenue growth. On Monday this turned out to be a turnover increase of 16.2 percent. The ING analysts were aiming for a turnover growth of 10 percent. TKH spoke of a strong performance in its tire building activities. And the prospects are also good, according to the company. TKH does expect a return to more normal growth.
Outlook
“We expect a clearly better second quarter than the first quarter,” CEO Alexander van der Lof said in a statement on Monday.
Total turnover and EBITA can therefore grow on an autonomous basis this year, TKH believes. A more detailed outlook will follow with the half-year figures.
Source: ABM Financial News
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