Chairman of the Board of Management Dr Wolfgang Schmitt reported a 42.6 percent improvement in consolidated earnings before taxes, which totalled € 128.7 million (previous year: € 90.2 million). As in the previous year, double-digit growth rates both in order intake (+ 12.9 percent) and in sales revenue (+ 10.2 percent) contributed to this positive performance. Overall, the KSB Group achieved a return on sales of 7.3 percent.

In 2007, KSB created 504 new jobs worldwide, 234 of them in Germany. At the same time, the output per employee rose from € 122 to 131 thousand. In total, KSB had 13,927 employees at the end of the year, 360 of them in four newly consolidated companies.

Since the German parent company KSB AG increased its earnings to € 21.8 million (previous year: € 5.9 million), a marked increase in the dividend to € 9.00 per ordinary share (previous year: € 2.00) and € 9.26 per preference share (previous year: € 2.52) is envisaged.

The KSB Group’s financial position improved again in 2007. Although total equity and liabilities rose by 11.3 percent to € 1,258.0 million, the equity ratio improved by 2.5 percentage points to 40.2 percent.

In the current year, KSB aims to increase consolidated sales revenue further with a moderate growth in order intake. Earnings before taxes will also rise again in the Group, according to the KSB Chairman of the Board of Management. In addition, he held out the prospect of a further improvement in return on sales.

In the first quarter of 2008, the Group boosted its sales revenue by 5.5 percent to € 434.5 million with a simultaneous 3.9 percent increase in order intake to € 578.0 million. By the end of March 2008, the number of employees in the Group, at 14,047, was up by 3.4 percent on the same period last year.

To help safeguard the future, KSB has planned the construction of new production facilities at three manufacturing sites in – Frankenthal, Halle (Saale) and Pegnitz – for the current year. For this, the Group is investing around € 70 million. In , too, KSB aims to increase capacity both this year and in the coming two years.