Gildemeister reveals best ever results

Orders were up 22 per cent to €1,904 million and profits increased from €158 million to €189 million. The company, which sells its machine tools via its DMG selling organisation, underlines that even in the final quarter of 2008, as the credit crisis unfolded, machine tool sales still increased by 10 per cent to €109.6 million against the same period in 2007. The company is now the world's largest manufacturer of metalcutting machine tools, ahead of Japan's Yamazaki Mazak and Mori Seiki. Despite a restrained start to the current financial year, Gildemeister expects levels of sales to develop "satisfactorily" in the first quarter of 2009 and the company maintains it has prepared for, and is well-equipped to meet, any forthcoming changes against warnings from the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) and German Machine Tool Builders Association (VDW). According to the Gildemeister Executive Board, the VDMA is forecasting a noticeable reduction in the market and the VDW is expecting a worldwide decline in the machine tool business during this year. At the end of December 2008, the Gildemeister group employed 6,450 people, an increase of 453 on 2007.