Sulzer looks forward to “high” profit in 2001

Sulzer has produced better figures for the first half of the year Keystone

The Sulzer company of Winterthur announced on Thursday that its earnings rose sharply in the first half, partly due to income from the sale of some of its business units, but also due to improvements at its core units.

Group first-half profit jumped to SFr120 million ($72.51 million), after a SFr11 million loss for the comparable period in 2000. The company had net sales of SFr1.873 billion and an operating income of SFr161 million.

The company, which is completing a reorganisation, said in a statement that it had a SFr185 million pre-tax profit on the sale of three businesses – Sulzer Turbo, Sulzer Infra and Sulzer Textil.

“The results demonstrate clearly the earnings and growth potential of Sulzer. After selling three of the four targeted business, we have thus made excellent progress, both operationally and strategically,” commented Sulzer chief executive officer Fred Kindle.

The statement added that Sulzer expected further earnings growth for the core divisions and group net profit would be “high”, particularly due to the sales of non-core businesses.

Sulzer has said it aims to have earnings before interest and taxes of SFr100 million this year.

The company is streamlining its operation, refocusing on promising businesses and shedding activities that have been flagging or have limited scope for growth.

The first half for Sulzer was characterised by a number of exceptional events, including an unsuccessful takeover bid by the InCentive Capital investment group and the spin-off of the medical technology company, Sulzer Medica, on July 10.

swissinfo with agencies