Financial key performance indicators

Compared to the previous year, the challenging environment in the first six months of the current business year resulted in lower margins, however, due to the improved product mix, the average prices made gains. While delivery volumes for the oil and natural gas industry declined, sales of special materials for the aviation industry rose. Overall, revenue rose in the first half of 2015/16 (EUR 1,368.8 million) compared to the same period of the previous year (EUR 1,350.4 million) by 1.4%. At EUR 186.3 million or a plus of 1.6%, the operating result (EBITDA) in the first half of 2015/16 experienced a similar gain compared to the previous year’s figure of EUR 183.4 million. The EBITDA margin remained unchanged at 13.6%. Profit from operations (EBIT) rose during the same period by 3.1% from EUR 114.3 million to EUR 117.9 million; as a result, the EBIT margin of 8.6% remained practically the same as in the first six months of 2014/15 (EBIT margin: 8.5%).

In comparison with the immediately preceding quarter, revenue fell by 6.9% from EUR 709.0 million in the first quarter of 2015/16 to EUR 659.8 million in the second quarter of 2015/16. On one hand, the decline was due to seasonal effects, but on the other, it resulted from lower sales in the oil and natural gas sector. Therefore, EBITDA fell by 13.7% from EUR 100.0 million to EUR 86.3 million, with the EBITDA margin going from 14.1% to 13.1%. EBIT decreased by 19.4% from EUR 65.3 million (with a margin of 9.2%) to EUR 52.6 million (with a margin of 8.0%).

The number of employees (FTE) in the Special Steel Division as of the end of the second quarter of 2015/16, was 13,434, a gain of 2.7% compared to the same quarter of the past business year (13,086 FTE); the figure fell slightly by 0.4% compared to the figure as of the end of the business year 2014/15 (13,490 FTE).