- Reorientation making progress
The positive trend in terms of orders received by Hoeft & Wessel AG continued in the third quarter of 2012. A total volume of EUR 61.8 million in new orders was registered in the first nine months of 2012 (2011: EUR 54.4 million). As a result, the book-to-bill ratio accounted for by this SME specialising in ticketing, parking and mobile data capture systems came to 1.1.
Orders for stationary ticket vending terminals were placed by the Belgian state-owned railway SNCB, by a Polish partner on behalf of the Upper Silesian industrial region and by national Danish rail. In France, Hoeft & Wessel succeeded in gaining access to the market with an order placed by Aérolis / Les Cars Air France. On the buses of the Keolis subsidiary, on-board ticket vending terminals are being installed with ticket printers. Two cities in the U.S. opted for car park terminals from the British subsidiary Metric. In the retail sector in Germany, the Rossmann and Rewe chains ordered additional mobile data capture terminals. The Company managed to sign up Fressnapf, a specialist pet food chain, as a new customer.
The order portfolio rose substantially in the course of the year until 30/09/2012, to reach EUR 48.9 million (31/12/2011: EUR 43.9 million).
In the first nine months of 2012, the Hoeft & Wessel Group recorded EUR 56.7 million in sales, down by 10 per cent year-on-year on account of the reorientation (2011: EUR 62.8 million).
In the first three quarters of 2012, Hoeft & Wessel supplied state-of-the-art EMV contactless ticketing systems for buses to the FirstGroup in the United Kingdom and to the public transport authority of the city of Durban in South Africa. In Germany, numerous consignments of mobile data capture devices were delivered to retail chains.
The operating result (EBIT), at ‑EUR 7.7 million, turned out clearly negative in the first nine months of 2012, as expected (2011: ‑EUR 3.2 million). This includes ‑EUR 3.0 million in restructuring expenses.
