Heidelberg full year results for 2016 and 2017 show its sales growing €9m from €486m to €495m but a drop in incoming orders from €804m to €629m which the company anticipated as drupa was held in the prior year.
Heidelberg attributes the sales growth to those in Western Europe and China. Its order backlog increased by 20 per cent from €497m to €603m. Its EBITDA came in at €14m compared to €1m in the prior year and EBIT came in at €-3m compared to the prior year’s figure at €-16m.
Due to lower financing costs, the financial result improved to €–13m, with the same quarter of previous year was €–16m. Including income taxes, the net result after taxes of €–16 million was smaller than the previous year’s figure of €–37m.
Rainer Hundsdörfer, CEO of Heidelberg says, “We are making good progress in transforming Heidelberg into a digital company. We have already had our initial successes in the first quarter, thanks to our new digital presses and two constructive acquisitions. We want to become even faster and more efficient in the future and are continuing to reconfigure company structures to that end.”
From these results Heidelberg says it is on course to achieve its annual targets. The company is underscoring its ambitions to consolidate a new corporate culture and return to growth with the motto- Heidelberg goes digital.
[Related: Heidelberg eyes $3bn target]
Dirk Kaliebe, CFO at Heidelberg says, “The almost complete conversion of a bond into shareholder’s equity is further evidence that our digitization strategy is being acknowledged on the capital markets. The repayment of the convertible bond has brought us closer to our goal of achieving a sustainable improvement in net interest income. We want to reduce interest costs, which currently stand at €34 million, to €20 million annually in the future.”
Heidelberg says it sees itself as being on course to achieve the company targets for 2022 that were announced, aiming to reach company sales of €3bn, EBITDA of €250 – 300m and a net result of €100m The additional revenues from new applications via digital platforms are being grown by the ongoing expansion of an eCommerce platform. Through the announced efficiency enhancements and improvements to the cost structure, operational excellence measures are set to drive up profitability by approximately €50m.
As announced at the annual press conference in June, sales in financial year 2017 and 2018 are set to reach the same level as the previous year. This is due to the anticipated development in order levels, the acquisitions that have already been completed, and – a measure that will have an inverse effect on sales – the avoidance of low-margin or high-risk activities.
For the next financial year 2017/18, the company aims to achieve an EBITDA margin in the region of 7 to 7.5 per cent through efficiency improvement measures. Compared to the previous year and factoring in a further improvement in the financial result, net profit after taxes is set to show a moderate increase.
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