Although the price level was stable overall, as a result of lower delivery volumes, revenue fell in the first half of 2013/14 (EUR 1,325.9 million) compared to the previous year (EUR 1,422.1 million) by 6.8%. As a consequence of lower demand for tool and special steel, both revenue and results fell. At EUR 176.3 million, the operating result (EBITDA) in the first half of 2013/14 is 9.4% below the previous year’s operating result of EUR 194.6 million. Nevertheless, due to lower revenue, the Special Steel Division reported an EBITDA margin of 13.3%, which was only slightly lower than last year’s figure (13.7%). The development of profit from operations (EBIT) is similar, falling by 10.1% from EUR 122.1 million (margin of 8.6%) to EUR 109.8 million (margin of 8.3%).
Compared to the immediately preceding quarter, revenue fell by 5.8% from EUR 682.8 million to EUR 643.1 million. This was triggered by lower delivery volumes and lower prices compared to the immediately preceding quarter. The decline in both the operating result (EBITDA) and the profit from operations (EBIT) was more significant during the current year than in a year-to-year comparison. While EBITDA dropped by 21.0% from EUR 98.5 million to EUR 77.8 million compared to the immediately preceding quarter, EBIT fell by almost one third from EUR 65.0 million to EUR 44.8 million. As a result of this development, in comparison with the immediately preceding quarter, the EBITDA margin was reduced from 14.4% to 12.1%, and the EBIT margin went down from 9.5% to 7.0%.
At 12,898 as of the end of the second quarter, the number of employees (FTE) in the Special Steel Division was 4.7% higher than the figure in the comparative quarter in the past business year and 1.4% higher than the figure as of the end of the previous business year (12,721 FTE).