Die Familie Firma

摘要

Palfinger ag, headquar-tered in a sleepy village just outside Salzburg, Austria, is a $1.1 billion (revenue) business. Established in 1932, this publicly traded company, still majority-owned by the Palfinger family (free float, 34%), makes 150 models of knuckle-boom cranes, a sort of airborne forklift usually mounted on trucks. It has 30% of the world's market for this appliance. Over the last five years Palfinger's sales have been growing at 19% annually, net income at 45%.rnDespite those results, and yet another record first quarter in 2008, Palfinger's stock-trading in Vienna and as an American Depositary Receipt in New York-has been caught up in global recession worries. Its shares are off 40% over the past year in euro terms. They now go for 11 times trailing earnings and 2.8 times book value.