January 29, 2014

Marel reports slight increase in Q4 2013 revenue

Marel released its expectations for the final quarter of 2013 at a moderate €1.1 million (US$1.5 million) boost in revenue compared to the previous quarter.

For the final three months of last year, the company expects €168 million in income. But, even if this figure fixes the 4.5% drop suffered in the third quarter, it will prove too short a jump to stabilise the year, which during the first nine months was down by 7.9% to €493.4 million (US$674 million).

Marel said its order book looked stronger now than at the beginning of 2013, but on Monday (Jan 27), at the start of the first week after announcing the guidance for the results of the fourth quarter, the stock price on Nasdaq OMX Iceland was 5.19% lower.

The recently-appointed CEO Arni Oddur Thordarson has a challenging year ahead to demonstrate his skills, as operating profit margin also dropped to 4.4% from 8.2% in the previous three months.

The company explained that it had faced mounting costs due to "the write-down of inventories as a consequence of Marel's continuous improvement projects".

In September, Marel noted that "while economic recovery seems to be gaining momentum in North America, the Eurozone is still fragile and signals from emerging markets remain mixed with positive future prospects". European markets, which account of 45% of sales, look challenging in 2014.

Marel also announced this week that it appointed Ross Layton as a new sales manager for the UK in the course of implementing a new strategy to grow the sales of all Marel products and systems in the meat and fish processing industries.