DUISBURG (dpa-AFX) - Steel trader Klockner & Co has cut its profit forecast for the current year due to difficult conditions in Europe. Falling demand in the construction sector, for example, as well as lower steel prices weighed on performance in the third quarter. Klockner now intends to take further countermeasures with a restructuring program. Several hundred jobs are to be cut.

Klockner plans to cut around 300 jobs in European sales, as Group CEO Guido Kerkhoff explained in a conference call held to announce the figures. That is about ten percent of the jobs in the division. These are spread across a wide range of regions, with around 80 jobs affected in Germany, according to Kerkhoff.

As a result, adjusted operating profit is expected to be around 25 million euros higher from 2024 onwards. The cuts are to begin in the current year. The costs will be in the lower double-digit million range, for which Klockner will set aside provisions in the fourth quarter. These negative effects are to be offset by income from the sale of land associated with the efficiency program, it said.

For the current year, Klockner now expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) adjusted for significant special effects to be only 170 to 200 million euros, as the company had already announced in Duisburg the previous evening. Previously, management had forecast 220 to 280 million euros. Cash inflows from operating activities are expected to be "clearly positive".

After nine months, Klockner has an adjusted operating profit of 172 million euros, significantly less than the 439 million euros in the previous year. In the third quarter, the company posted an adjusted operating profit of 41 million euros, up from 16 million a year earlier. The Group attributed the increase to continued positive development in North America and Switzerland. Klockner had recently made additional purchases in North America. However, the result was at the lower end of the forecast range - Klockner had targeted 40 to 80 million.

Sales in the three months to the end of September fell from just under 2.4 billion euros to 1.9 billion euros, while shipments remained virtually unchanged. The net loss was 12 million euros, ten million less than in the weak prior-year quarter. After nine months, a loss of nine million euros is still on the books, compared with a profit of 295 million euros a year earlier. For the fourth quarter, Klockner expects a slight decline in unit sales and sales compared to the previous quarter.

After the shares, which are listed on the SDax, had fallen significantly the previous day following the lowering of forecasts, these statements met with greater approval on Tuesday. The stock rose more than eleven percent at times, but then came back somewhat and was most recently up a good four and a half percent./nas/tav/ngu