Swiss engineering company Sulzer AG (SUN.EB) doesn't expect its late-cycle business, which includes its main pump division, to recover before early next year, chief exceuctive Ton Buechner said Thursday.

Still, he was cautiously optmistic about orders intake for the group as a whole.

"As a company I expect our order intake to be slightly better than last year, in single digit percentage points," Buechner told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.

-By John Revill, Dow Jones Newswires; +41 43 443 8047; john.revill@dowjones.com