Barco has suffered a loss of €68.9 million in 2009, and seen its order book drop nearly 20 per cent and sales drop 13 per cent in its latest quarterly results. The company posted a loss of €54.1 million (EBIT) for Q4 2009 including provisions for re

Barco posts €68m loss in 2009

Paul Milligan, 16 February 2010

Barco has suffered a loss of €68.9 million in 2009, and seen its order book drop nearly 20 per cent and sales drop 13 per cent in its latest quarterly results. The company posted a loss of €54.1 million (EBIT) for Q4 2009 including provisions for restructuring. In the one ray of light from the results, the company saw a large increase in digital cinema sales (up from €37m to €100m).

Incoming orders for Q4 2009 were down 18.4 per cent to €166.5m. and sales for the quarter were 180.6m, down 13.1 per cent less in Q4 2008.

Sales for 2009 totalled €638.1m, down 12 per cent from 2008 levels. Sales included more than €100m of shipments of digital cinema projectors, up from €37m in 2008.

Commenting on the results of 2009, Eric Van Zele, President and CEO, said: 'In the wake of the economic crisis and the global credit crunch, Barco had no other option but to deal decisively with the new realities of the markets it was serving. Demand for products and systems in the events and out-of-home media markets imploded. So we needed to right-size and clean up our assets and resources deployed in this division. This included taking provisions for all known liabilities and selling-off or writing-off all excess inventories and capitalised research & development expenses. Furthermore impairment of goodwill on acquisitions done in previous years proved necessary and operating expenses had to be cut drastically. This explains why Barco's 2009 focus was on generating the cash needed to guide the company safely through turbulent times and through many costly change processes.'