The Special Steel Division was largely able to continue the stable development, which had predominated during the previous quarters, in the early part of the business year 2012/13, although it was not able to match the outstanding results of the first quarter of the previous year. The optimization measures, which had been implemented consistently in the past years, had a stabilizing effect on earnings in a market environment that has become more challenging. Therefore, revenue of the Special Steel Division fell only marginally (by 2.0%) compared to the previous year, going from EUR 750.7 million to EUR 735.7 million; the higher average revenue was able to mostly compensate the declining delivery volumes. As far as operating results are concerned, however, the downward trend was more significant; EBIT was at EUR 68.8 million, 16.8% below last year’s figure of EUR 82.7 million. As a result, the EBIT margin fell from 11.0% to 9.3%.
As of June 30, 2012, the Special Steel Division had 12,348 employees (full-time equivalent), an increase of 2.6% compared to the same reporting date in the previous year (12,032 employees).