IPTE increases profit

The fourth quarter of 2006 was marked in particular by the agreement to acquire Barco's PCB assembly activity. This acquisition is effective since January first 2007 and therefore does not impact the 2006 operational results. Group sales for the whole of 2006 were EUR 138 million, up 9.5 percent on 2005 (EUR 127 million). Net profit for the year was EUR 1.9 million compared with EUR 2.2 million in 2005. “2006 was the year in which we expanded our contract manufacturing activity. Our contract manufacturing sales rose by 11 percent – all of it internal growth – from EUR 78 million in 2005 to EUR 88 million in 2006. Now that we have acquired Barco's PCB assembly activity, we are expecting for 2007 sales of over EUR 140 million in this activity, making us one of the largest subcontractors in the Benelux. The automation activity too achieved most of its objectives in 2006. For the second successive year the operation has run without a loss, on stable sales of around EUR 50 million. The year's results are influenced both positively and negatively by a number of events. On the one hand we had to write off more than kEUR 700 of customer receivables and inventories, on the other hand we recorded a financial gain of over kEUR 500 as a result of the obligation of LRM and management to convert the EUR 7 million subordinated loan into capital by October 2007. Without these events our profit would have been similar to that of 2005", Managing Director Huub Baren commented. The order book at the end of 2006 has grown to more than EUR 50 million, a record for the IPTE group as a whole. IPTE's 'Factory Automation' activity consists of delivering production and test automation systems to the automotive, telecommunications, consumer electronics and computer industries. The 'Contract Manufacturing' division (Connect Systems) acts as a contract manufacturer for printed circuit boards and in-board assembly, off-the-shelf cabling and final product assembly. It is also active in industrial and medical products. The IPTE group's annual sales of EUR 137.9 million break down into: industrial products 30 %, automotive 29 %, telecommunications 17 %, consumer electronics 10 %, computers 6 %, medical products 5 % and other 3 %. Factory Automation customers come primarily from the automotive (41 %), consumer electronics (26 %) and computer (17 %) market segments. Connect Systems customers are mainly from the industrial products 43 %, telecommunications 24 % and automotive 22 % segments. Geographically, IPTE's annual sales break down into: Benelux 55 %, rest of Europe 40 % and America / Asia 5 %. The order book at the end of the reporting period stood at EUR 50.6 million (2005: EUR 43.2 million). EUR 13.5 million of this amount relates to Factory Automation (EUR 12.9 million at end 2005) and EUR 37.1 million (EUR 30.3 million at the end of 2005) to Connect Systems.