Rieter streamlines management

Rieter plans to streamline its structures outside of production. According to a press release on the half-year accounts of the textile machine manufacturer based in Winterthur, it is applying its Next Level program to do so. This aims to strengthen sales expertise and client proximity, increase cost efficiency in production, and reduce fixed costs by 80 million Swiss francs per year.

This includes cutting 300 jobs in management, which will start this year. If the downward market trend continues, further cuts of 400 to 600 jobs cannot be ruled out according to Rieter. At the end of June, Rieter had 5,555 staff worldwide. The company anticipates one-off costs for Next Level of 45 to 50 million Swiss francs.

For the first half of the year, Rieter recorded sales of 758.2 million Swiss francs, growth of 22.2 percent versus the same period of the previous year. Asia without China, India, and Turkey was the most important market in the first half-year with sales of 227.0 million Swiss francs, followed by India with 131.5 million. North and South America contributed 105.5 million. In contrast, sales in Turkey and Europe decreased significantly.

The result before interest and taxes was 25.2 million Swiss francs. Net profit in the first half of the year was 13.3 million versus a loss of 25.2 million in the same period of the previous year.

The current order backlog of 1.1 billion Swiss francs is almost half the previous year’s level. Order intake only increased in China. The company anticipates a revival of the market in the last quarter of 2023 at the earliest. ce/stk