Financial key performance indicators

In a year-over-year comparison, the positive market environment led to dramatic improvements in the division’s key financial performance indicators. As far as revenue is concerned, all major production facilities as well as sales areas succeeded in expanding their volume—in some cases considerably. The increase is borne by both improved prices and rising quantities. On the whole, the division’s revenue rose by 8.2%, from EUR 2,697.9 million in 2016/17 to EUR 2,918.0 million in the past business year. The operating result (EBITDA) climbed by 14.9%, from EUR 395.2 million in the previous year to EUR 453.9 in the current year, which also led to an improvement in the EBITDA margin by one percentage point from 14.6% to 15.6%. The slightly lower absolute increase in the profit from operations (EBIT) stems from the aforementioned impairment losses of EUR 10 million on property, plant and equipment at the Brazilian Villares site in the fourth quarter of 2017/18. Hence EBIT rose by 17.8%, specifically, from EUR 252.7 million (margin of 9.4%) in the previous year to currently EUR 297.6 million (margin of 10.2%).

A direct comparison of the third and fourth quarters of 2017/18 shows that the High Performance Metals Division succeeded in expanding its revenue by 11.3% from EUR 703.5 million to EUR 783.1 million, mainly due to the substantial increase in delivery volumes, but also due to the cost-driven increase in prices, albeit to a lesser degree. As regards the delivery volumes, the level achieved in the final quarter of the business year harked back to that achieved in the first quarter of 2012/13. Due to the strength of the market, EBITDA jumped 21.9% in the fourth quarter of 2017/18 to EUR 124.9 million (previous quarter: EUR 102.5 million). This signifies an increase from 14.6% to 15.9% in the EBITDA margin. Owing to non-recurring depreciation in Brazil, the improvement in EBIT was a little less pronounced in the fourth quarter of 2017/18, but it rose nonetheless by 18.0% from EUR 66.7 million in the third quarter to EUR 78.7 million in the subsequent quarter. A direct quarter-on-quarter comparison also shows that the EBIT margin improved from 9.5% to 10.0%.

As of March 31, 2018, the High Performance Metals Division had 14,274 employees (FTE). This corresponds to an increase of 3.9% over the number (13,733 FTE) on the previous year’s reporting date, due in particular to the large production volume and the resulting excellent capacity utilization at all manufacturing plants.