Elcoteq slightly up - but not quite happy with results

"The year started with mixed results. The completed acquisition of BroadTech Inc. demonstrated that our new Life Cycle Services strategy implementation has started strongly. Also the seasonality related volume fluctuation of the EMS business was predictable and in-line with our expectations, but the volume development in After Market Services business fell clearly short of our expectations. There were unpredictable shortages in our two biggest AMS customers' business volumes both in the Americas and partly in Europe - for different coincidental reasons. This negative development indicates that our AMS customer base is not balanced enough, yet. Our recent acquisition of the US based BroadTech will on its part address the issue: combined with our existing set-up in Mexico it has enhanced our service offering significantly in North America and is accelerating business development with both existing and new customers in the region. Despite of the unsatisfactory volume development during first quarter we see that the underlying strong demand for after market services and need for the new service solutions have not changed. Although we can be satisfied with the development of our cost base and cost competitiveness in general, we cannot be happy with the speed of the results generated by them. We were able to improve our operating results with lower sales, but not fast enough. It is clearly visible in our figures that the transition we have been going through has hit us relatively hardest in Asia, where business volumes were extremely low. We simply have not been able to replace the high volume business smoothly with the new type of business we are actively hunting for - despite new customer wins and related ramp-ups." In brief - Net sales in January–March 2011 were EUR 191.4 million (220.5 in January–March 2010) - Operating result EUR -11.1 million (-12.9) and excluding restructuring costs EUR -9.6 million (-10.6) - Result before taxes EUR -20.9 million (63.0) - Earnings per share (EPS) EUR -0.62 (1.21) - Cash flow after investing activities EUR -12.2 million (-23.3) - Rolling 12-month return on capital employed (ROCE) -1.3% (11.4%) - Interest-bearing net debt EUR 25.0 million (103.7) - Gearing 0.3 (1.0) - Solvency 21.6% (19.4%)