Development of the key figures

The strongly improved economic climate in practically all of the Steel Division’s important customer industries and sales regions resulted in a significant increase in revenue and operating results, which was driven by all of the division’s business segments. The main factors were significant increases in volumes resulting in full capacity utilization, price levels that were higher than those of the previous year, and the stepped-up optimization of the product mix toward the qualitatively most demanding markets with a correspondingly attractive margin profile.

Revenues rose by 34.7% from EUR 3,098.7 million to EUR 4,175.0 million in the business year 2010/11. EBITDA rose by 40.6% from EUR 423.3 million to EUR 595.1 million, resulting in a slight increase of the EBITDA margin from 13.7% to 14.3% compared to the previous year.

The Steel Division’s operating result showed a comparatively above-average gain, with EBIT going up compared to the business year 2009/10 by 84.7% from EUR 201.4 to EUR 371.9 million, putting the EBIT margin at 8.9% (previous year: 6.5%).

In the course of the business year 2010/11, the Division’s number of employees rose slightly compared to the previous year by 1.2% from 9,510 to 9,622 (excl. apprentices and temporary personnel).

The quarterly development during the course of the business year showed continuous increases in both revenue and operating result. In the fourth quarter of the business year, revenue growth was 15.6% (from EUR 1,038.1 million to EUR 1,200.5 million) compared to the immediately preceding quarter and was primarily the result of an optimization of the product mix. In the same period, the Steel Division improved its EBITDA by 25.2% from EUR 142.6 million to EUR 178.5 million, with its EBIT rising even more strongly by 40.1% (from EUR 85.8 million to EUR 120.2 million). Thus, the EBITDA margin rose from 13.7% to 14.9%, and the EBIT margin went up from 8.3% to 10.0%.