HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) - After a strong first half of the year, business at forklift truck manufacturer Jungheinrich weakened in the third quarter. Incoming orders and sales increased, as the company announced in Hamburg on Friday. In the first six months, however, growth rates had been significantly higher. The share lost value after the presentation of the figures.

At the end of the week, the MDax-listed preference share broke off its recent recovery with a discount of more than five percent, putting it in last place in the index. One share last cost 25.80 euros, slightly less than at the beginning of 2023. In the first few weeks of the year, the share price had initially climbed to more than 37 euros per share, but the stock did not make it any further towards the record high of 48 euros reached in spring 2021.

Jungheinrich is currently worth a good 2.6 billion euros on the stock market. The preference shares only account for just under half of Jungheinrich's capital. The rest are ordinary shares owned by the heirs of the company's founder.

In the third quarter, incoming orders rose by just under five percent year-on-year to 1.2 billion euros. According to Jefferies analyst Lucas Ferhani, demand remained below expectations, as was the case with Jungheinrich's competitor Kion.

Sales improved by 14 percent to just under 1.36 billion euros. Compared to the first six months of the year, growth weakened; measured against the second quarter, earnings remained almost stable in absolute terms.

Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) for the reporting months of July to September fell by one percent to 103 million euros due to higher costs compared to the previous year. Jungheinrich had still achieved a strong growth rate here in the first half of the year. Earnings per share fell from 0.70 to 0.67 euros in the past quarter.

The operating margin (EBIT margin) amounted to 7.6 per cent in the third quarter after 8.7 per cent in the same period last year. The management confirmed its forecast for the year, according to which a margin of 7.8% to 8.6% is to be achieved in 2023.

As profitability was already at 8.9% after the first half of the year, analysts had already expected the margin to have fallen slightly in the third quarter. After nine months, the figure now stands at 8.4 percent.

In recent months, Jungheinrich has attempted to offset higher personnel and material costs by increasing the selling prices of its forklift trucks and logistics systems. However, analysts speculated that the Hamburg-based company may have given some price reductions in view of the sluggish economy and the resulting weakening demand.

He has no doubt that the medium to long-term growth opportunities for Jungheinrich's intralogistics solutions remain favorable, wrote Baader Bank analyst Peter Rothenaicher./lew/tav/mis