Sandvik: Q4 business ‘stable’

Overall, 460 Sandvik’s business was stable in the fourth quarter with good performance especially in Sandvik Tooling but also in Sandvik Mining and Construction.
This is the view of Sandvik’s president and CEO Olof Faxander who was talking about the group’s interim report on the fourth quarter and full-year 2011.
“In Sandvik Materials Technology, the scenario was more fragmented, with high demand in the oil and gas industry offset by weakness in several other segments. The North American market was stable during the quarter, as was much of Europe and Asia.
“At fixed exchange rates, invoiced sales rose 9% and amounted to 25.1billion SEK [€2.85billion], the highest in the group’s history. Order intake declined by 7% largely due to a significant drop in demand for major projects compared with the year-earlier period. Adjusted for one-off costs of 1.6billion SEK [€180million] the operating profit was 3.2billion SEK [€360million].
“Major organisational changes always run a certain risk of the company becoming too internally focused. I am therefore delighted to see that the process has been fast and efficient and that the new organisation is now in place. The group’s financial goals have also been updated.”