Earnings at engineering group Stork fell in the second quarter because of continuing problems with its NH90 helicopter, requiring a provision of €35m, the company said on Wednesday.

That reduced net profit to €300,000, compared with €82m in the 2006 second quarter. However, the 2006 figure itself was boosted by book profit of €62m.
Stork also announced it had sold 60% of its Prints division to investment company Bencis for €73m.
During the results presentation, chairman Sjoerd Vollebregt said he did not expect any problems with the company’s takeover by UK venture capital group Candover for €1.5bn.
Vollebregt said there had been talks with Icelandic group Marel which holds over 20% of Stork’s shares and could thwart the Candover. There were ways to break Marel’s resistance or get round it,’ ANP reported him as saying.