ST. LOUIS – Viasystems Group reported net sales for the quarter ended Mar. 31 of $272.9 million, up 4.1% year-over-year, and flat sequentially.

Taking into account the firm’s May 2012 acquisition of DDi Corp., net sales for the quarter declined 17.5% year-over-year.

Adjusted EBITDA was $29.5 million, or 10.8% of net sales, down 10.9% year-over-year, and up 1.4% sequentially.

Operating income in the quarter ended Mar. 31 was $2.6 million, or 0.9% of net sales, and includes special charges for approximately $5 million of manufacturing inefficiencies and net start-up costs for the company’s Guangzhou facility following a September 2012 fire.

“While the resulting net sales and earnings for our first quarter of 2013 were in line with our stated expectations,” said Viasystems’ CEO David M. Sindelar, “our Guangzhou, China, operations struggled to recover from last year’s fire as quickly as we had planned. The shortfall in earnings from the Guangzhou operations was offset by reduced variable expenses such as travel and incentive compensation in the quarter.”

“In terms of our end markets,” continued Sindelar, “the prolonged recovery period for our Guangzhou factory capacity continued to be the most significant contributing factor to the declines in pro forma year-over-year net sales to our automotive and computer and data communications customers.”

Net sales and operating income in the company’s printed circuit boards segment for the first quarter of 2013 were $241 million and $3.7 million, respectively, compared with printed circuit boards segment net sales and operating income of $213.1 million and $7 million, respectively, for the first quarter of 2012.

Net sales and operating loss in the company’s assembly segment for the first quarter of 2013 were $31.9 million and $1 million, respectively, compared with assembly segment net sales and operating loss of $49 million and $800,000, respectively, for the first quarter of 2012.

The firm provides multilayer printed circuit boards and electromechanical solutions.