Getinge Says Slow Europe Capital-Goods Market Hurt Sales

Getinge AB (GETIB), a Swedish maker of sterilization systems sold in more than 100 countries, said demand for its products weakened during the fourth quarter, hurting orders and sales.

Full-year sales contracts received and invoicing rose by nearly 3 percent, excluding currency fluctuations and acquisitions, which was lower than the expected growth, Getinge, based in the Swedish town with the same name, said in a statement today.

“The demand for capital goods was particularly weak in western Europe and eastern Europe,” Getinge said.

Pretax profit was about 3.6 billion kronor ($555 million) last year, excluding one-time acquisition and restructuring costs of 170 million kronor related to the purchase of Kinetic Concepts Inc.’s TSS division, Getinge said. The average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 13 analysts was for pretax profit of 3.71 billion kronor.

Getinge dropped as much as 9.4 percent to 195.7 kronor, the steepest intraday decline since March 24, 2009, and was trading down 8.4 percent at 9:10 a.m. in Stockholm. The stock has fallen 10 percent this year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kim McLaughlin in Stockholm at kmclaughlin6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Risser at drisser@bloomberg.net