STINNES REPORTS LOWER SALES AND EARNINGS

STINNES REPORTS LOWER SALES AND EARNINGS    The Stinnes Group, based in Mulheim, Germany, reported that external sales and earnings before interest and taxes in the first half of 2002 were below levels for 2001.
   External sales decreased in the first half of this year by 8 percent, to 5.9 billion euro. “The primary contributor to this development,” the company said in a statement, was Stinnes’s materials division, where external sales fell by 26 percent to 593 million euro, “due to a deep plunge in prices and a decline in sales by volume.”
   Two expanding divisions within Stinnes, transportation and chemicals logistics, did well enough in the first half-year to match their internal operating profits for the first six months of 2001.
   The Stinnes Group’s earnings before interest and taxes, before adjustments, decreased in the first half of 2002 by six percent to 157 million euro.