GERMANY - In the first nine month of 2017, the HOMAG Group, the world's leading manufacturer of machines and systems for the woodworking industry, continued its positive performance and recorded significant increases in its figures.

The Group's sales in 9M17 were up 12 percent, reaching € 901 million (9M16: € 804 million) while incoming orders rose by 26 percent to € 1,079 million (9M16: € 858 million). Operating EBIT rose by 47 percent to € 71.1 million (9M16: € 49.6 million). As of September 30, 2017, the HOMAG Group had 6,316 employees (previous year: 6,072 employees).

“We are still seeing a high level of demand for our solutions”, highlights CEO Pekka Paasivaara. “And we are successful in all regions around the world.” CFO Franz Peter Matheis sees the disproportionately strong increase in earnings as a validation of the measures taken to achieve efficiency gains. “We have standardized and optimized our processes and systems and made our production more efficient. Although we have already achieved a lot, we want to keep on getting better. This is why we have initiated a comprehensive Operational Excellence Program.”

Paasivaara expects further growth, mainly as a result of the customer trend toward digitization and automation and by offering end-to-end solutions, the HOMAG Group sees itself as a long-term partner to its customers. With this in mind, the company expects 2017 to be a successful year overall, and it remains confident for 2018 given the high order backlog.

January - September (9M)