Drupa Sales Boost KBA in Second Half-year

WÜRZBURG, GERMANY—06/19/08— At the 83rd AGM of German press manufacturer Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA), group president and CEO Albrecht Bolza-Schünemann revealed that Drupa, a 14-day print media trade fair recently held in Düsseldorf, had brought in orders worth more than €200m, surpassing the figure for the previous Drupa in 2004. Most of the contracts were for batch-produced sheetfed presses, sales of which had been badly hit in the first five months by a slump in the key US market. Judging by the response to KBA’s product launches, post-Drupa business also promises to be brisk. The total volume of sales generated by the fair cannot be calculated with any degree of precision until the autumn, since financing for certain export markets must still be clarified, and this has become more complex and time-consuming in the wake of the credit crisis.