During the past five years Scott has been plagued by the strength of the New Zealand dollar against the US dollar, which has undermined overseas revenues, at times alarmingly.
However, for a change, the weakening of the kiwi against the greenback is ''more than offsetting'' any losses from the Australian dollar being near 1:1 parity with the kiwi, chief executive Chris Hopkins said.
''It's not all doom and gloom for us. The US is more than offsetting the Australian, plus we have a natural hedge there [Australia] with expanding [manufacturing] operations,'' he said when contacted.
''[However] the lower a currency is, the better it is for us. We'd like it with the Australian at A75c and US down below US70c,'' Mr Hopkins said.
Scott's is involved in making assembly lines, meat industry robotics and niche-market mining sector equipment, plus numerous specialised research and development projects.
By necessity, Scott mainly deals globally in US dollars, but its last full-year result showed about 20% of its total $60 million revenue was from Australia.
Because Scott is expecting to report its half-year trading result shortly, Mr Hopkins cannot yet release any details covering that period.
He said that, in general, all of Scott's work is hedged, with forward currency contracts, at the time contracts are signed, at about the rate on the day.
The fall in the kiwi against the greenback, from US88c to US75c recently, from August to February, had been greater than the kiwi's rise against the Australian, Mr Hopkins said.
''The US dollar has been more important and significant for us,'' he said.
On the complexities of foreign exchange, volatility and hedging, Mr Hopkins said while the public had to deal with inflation and the official cash rate being about 2.5% on an annual basis, currency volatility was so fast-moving and dynamic that 2.5% could be a weekly movement for businesses to have to deal with.
With Scott's operations expanding in Australia, that situation offered a ''bigger natural hedge'' environment, as manufacturing costs were getting cheaper, he said.
In January, Scott settled a deal to purchase Australian company, Machinery Automation and Robotics, for $A13 million (worth $NZ13.2 million this week), which has a $A20 million turnover and employs 60.
Mr Hopkins said the near-parity situation did pose issues when considering future work and at negotiation time, but the hedging contracts were not expensive and cost only a small percentage point.
• For its full financial year to last August, Scott reported flat trading revenue and a 40% decline in after-tax profit, down from $5.14 million to $3.02 million.
Mr Hopkins highlighted at the time the strength of the kiwi against the greenback had stripped about $2 million from revenues, meaning before-tax profit could have been more than $6 million, closer to the previous year's result.
