“In MC, the market trends of the past several quarters persisted. Sales remained stable in the Americas and China, weakened in Asia outside of China, and was well below 2011 levels in Europe. Pricing was stable around the world except for Europe, where it was under considerable pressure. On a positive note, we did see the first indications during Q4 that the sales decline in Europe might be moderating, as for the first time in over a year, quarterly sales increased on a sequential basis.
“Our competitive performance continues to be strong, as our market share with the leading papermakers in every region of the world is either holding firm or growing. Gross margins were once again strong and for the third consecutive quarter, exceeded 44 percent. Albany International Corp., a global advanced textiles and materials processing company with core businesses in machine clothing and engineered composites, reported Q4 2012 income from continuing #
“Meanwhile, we decided in Q4 to make a major investment aimed at further enhancing our strength in R&D. For the last few years, at the same time that we have been introducing a steady stream of new products that helps to account for our strong competitive performance, we have been developing an entirely new, proprietary technology platform that offers the potential for an array of new products across all of our product segments.
In 2013, we will begin construction of a $15 million facility capable of producing full-scale prototypes of new products based on this new technology platform at our plant in Kaukauna, Wisconsin. Our objective is to accelerate the cycle of exploration, development, scale-up, testing, and market introduction of this new generation of products”.
“Our outlook for MC remains unchanged. For both the near and long term, we continue to view this as a business with the potential for flat, year-over-year Adjusted EBITDA. We still expect Adjusted EBITDA in 2013 to be roughly comparable to Adjusted EBITDA in 2012. Because of seasonal effects, we expect a weak Q1, although it is unlikely to be as weak as Q1 2012.
About Albany International Corp.
Albany International is a global advanced textiles and materials processing company, with two core businesses. Machine Clothing is the world's leading producer of custom-designed fabrics and belts essential to production in the paper, nonwovens, and other process industries.
Albany Engineered Composites is a rapidly growing supplier of highly engineered composite parts for the aerospace industry. Albany International is headquartered in Rochester, New Hampshire, operates 18 plants in 11 countries, employs 4,000 people worldwide.
Albany International