ITALY - The global crisis following the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic outside of China impacted on the activities of the Biesse Group.

The lockdown measures gradually imposed by the Government and adopted by local administrations where the Group’s facilities operate, led to a reduction in both manufacturing and commercial activities. In particular, starting from the second-half of March all the Italian factories had to interrupt operations, with a consequent reduction in production and sale volumes. Moreover, in the same period many of the key markets (except for North America, Russia and South America) also suffered a rapid slowdown in the flows of goods and people, with a consequent impact on order intake and, consequently, on sale volumes.

Given this broad situation of difficulty, Biesse Group’s revenues for the first quarter of 2020 (1Q-2020) amounted to € 147.6 million, down 12.7% compared to the same period of last year.

The decrease concerned all the geographical areas of reference, and in particular Asia-Oceania (down 16.8%), Eastern Europe (down 14%) and Western Europe (down 12.6%), while North America and the Rest of the World fell by 9.8% and 8.7% respectively.

The above-mentioned drop in volumes was reflected in the operating result for the period, as indicated by EBITDA that amounted to € 12.3 million, down by 34.5%. compared to the 1Q-2019.

As for the breakdown of revenue by operating segment, a general drop was recorded in all divisions, although with different trends: the Wood Division, thanks to the order backlog at the end of the year, managed to limit the decrease to a negative 7.1%. A similar trend was recorded by the Tooling Division (down by 6.5%). The Glass/Stone Division decreased by 31.3% compared to the same period in 2019, while the Mechatronics and Components divisions dropped by 18.4% and 25.7% respectively.