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S Bearings Inc. in Fountain
Inn, South Carolina,
a Plain Bearings subsidiary
of the Kolbenschmidt
Pierburg Group,
and Miba Bearings US
LLC, McConnelsville,
Ohio, are forging a joint venture for
the production of input materials
used in the manufacture of plain
bearings.
The new company ABM Advanced
Bearing Materials LLC, Greensburg,
Indiana, in which both companies
hold equal shares, will chiefly produce
all the input materials from cast
lead and leadfree bronze and brass
hybrids for downstream processing at
the Miba and Kolbenschmidt locations
in the USA, Germany, and Austria.
The joint venture will be paritymanaged
by representatives of KS
Gleitlager and Miba Gleitlager.
The product ranges of Miba and KS
are an ideal complement. Whereas KS
Gleitlager mainly focuses on passen-
Newsline
Düsseldorf based group shows solid progress – earnings are up once more
Rheinmetall: Sharp rise in order intake
Düsseldorf. Organic growth and superior
operating performance: the second
quarter of 2005 saw Rheinmetall continue
the solid progress already shown at
the start of the year by advancing along
the path of profitable growth. Both sectors
– Automotive and Defence – generated
higher sales. Order intake also
showed a sharp rise. The group’s results
of operations again improved. Sales and
earnings in the first six months of the
year have endorsed the confident
growth and earnings predictions for all of
2005.
In the first half of 2005, the Rheinmetall
group generated sales of € 1,617
million (down from € 1,621 million). Adjusted
for year-earlier divestments, sales
mounted by € 79 million, corresponding
to an organic growth of 5 percent.
The first half of the year was a period of
surging order intake for Rheinmetall.
Compared with the like-for-like period in
2004, new business soared 22 percent
from € 1,567 million to € 1,919 million.
This appreciable improvement was
largely due to strategically important
contracts booked by the Defence sector.
Rheinmetall’s EBIT in the first six
months amounted to € 72 million (down
from € 89 million), with the Defence sec-
tor showing the sharpest improvement
and Automotive repeating its solid yearearlier
EBIT. The € 19 million shortfall at
group level is chiefly the outcome of the
year-earlier € 17 million gain from divestments
plus this year’s one-off expense
(€ 7 million) for redeeming the old corporate
bonds.
Adjusted for one-off gains and expenses,
the Rheinmetall group’s results of operations
rose from € 77 million to € 83
million during the first six months of the
current year. The adjusted EBIT margin
mounted from 4.8 to 5.1 percent. Moreover,
with liquidity up and thanks to the
finance rescheduling, net interest expense
shrank by € 9 million to € 25 million.
These are heartening results for the
first six months of 2005, given the fact
that the Defence sector will generate
most of its sales and earnings in the latter
half of the year.
★ Automotive: The Automotive sector
generated sales of € 1,031 million between
January and the end of June 2005,
three percent over the high first-half figure
in 2004 of € 1,000 million and well
ahead of the world auto industry which
added a mere 1 percent. The chief contributor
was the Aluminum Technology
ger car and light commercial vehicle
applications, Miba as world-market
and technology leader for mediumspeed
diesels, supplies the manufacturers
of high-volume engines used in
heavy-duty trucks, ships, locomotives,
etc.
Besides supplying the input materials
for plain bearings, the joint venture
will give both parties options for
even more comprehensive cooperation
in future, e.g. to jointly develop
leadfree bearing materials, share existing
testing rigs and benches, and
to mutually tap new markets.
The Miba group, Laakirchen, Austria,
manufactures sintered parts,
plain bearings and friction linings for
motor and rail vehicles, ships, aircraft,
and power plants at nine locations
around the world.
4
division, up by 15 percent in the first half
of 2005.
Automotive’s (operating) EBIT for the
first six months reached € 68 million,
matching the high year-earlier performance
given that the year-earlier figure
had included a gain of € 9 million from
the disposal of the measuring equipment
product group (Pierburg Instruments).
★ Defence: Defence lifted sales by 8 percent
or € 45 million to € 582 million, the
biggest contributions coming from Defence
Electronics (+21 percent) and Air
Defence (+13 percent).
Order intake by the end of June 2005
had surged 81 percent to € 866 million
and was thus once again well ahead of
sales for the period.
The first-half EBIT by the Defence sector
added up to € 16 million, up by € 9
million. As a consequence, the sector’s
end-of-June EBT has already reached € 8
million (up from a negative € 2 million).
The performance in the first six months
of 2005 has prompted Rheinmetall to reconfirm
its forecasts for all of 2005. The
second half of 2005 will see a repetition
of the group’s organic growth, with
earnings again rising.
The Miba Bearing Group belonging
to the Miba group produces plain
bearings for commercial vehicle and
other large engines. A work force of
740 generates sales of around € 112.3
million. The Miba group employs
2,700 persons and achieved sales of
€ 328 million in 2004/05.
KS Gleitlager GmbH, St. Leon-Rot,
Germany, the parent company of the
New joint venture in the USA
Kolbenschmidt Pierburg group’s Plain
Bearings division, has two production
locations in Germany and another
three in the USA and Brazil. The product
range embraces engine bearings
plus low-maintenance/maintenancefree
dry bearings (Permaglide) for a
wide variety of automobile applications.
The company also operates Europe’s
biggest continuous casting
line for nonferrous metals.