Organic growth for the quarter was approximately 4%, driven by increased demand and growth in Asia, as well as recovery in the European fashion segment, which offset lower demand in North America.
Automotive, Print and Packaging, and Supply Chain segments experienced significant negative organic growth of -12%, -16%, and -11% respectively; Industrial turned negative at -3%, and Healthcare saw -5% but remains positive on future outlook.
Trade disputes, particularly between the U.S. and China, have created uncertainty and a slowdown in North American demand, especially impacting fashion customers whose supply chains are heavily China-dependent.
The company is focusing on cost reduction, capacity consolidation, and leveraging its proprietary WMS system (CloudX) with increased AI functionality to adapt to changing logistics needs and potential opportunities from regionalization of supply chains.
Working capital has been reduced by $634 million over the last two years; management is actively exploring consolidation opportunities in the German print market due to industry-wide volume declines.