Gurit sees sharp decline in marine sales

WATTWIL, Switzerland — Gurit, a Swiss producer of composite materials for wind energy, transportation and marine applications, reported its 2009 first half marine sales fell by 41.6 percent year to year to CHF 22.3 million. The company doesn’t expect improvement in the marine market until 2011, it said in a recent statement.

Marine sales were the biggest drag on Gurit’s business in the first half, with wind energy sales relatively stable with a 3.1 percent decline and sales to transportation customers down only 11.7 percent, according to the company. Gurit expects those markets to begin to recover in 2010, a year sooner than the marine market.

The company achieved its target of maintaining last year’s EBIT ratio of 5.2 percent, it reported. Moving forward, it expects to see markedly lower sales figures by year-end, compared with last year, and to achieve an operational EBIT margin of around 5 percent.

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