Financial key performance indicators

While the Metal Forming Division did see a year-over-year increase in revenue in the business year 2018/19, it had to contend with significant losses in earnings. Specifically, revenue rose by 7.1% from EUR 2,743.4 million to EUR 2,937.4 million. This revenue growth was driven by the biggest revenue-generating business segments, Automotive Components and Tubes & Sections, whereas the revenue of the two smaller business segments, Precision Strip and Warehouse & Rack Solutions, dropped slightly. While the sales volume in Automotive Components rose sharply owing to the expansion of the segment’s business activity at sites outside of Europe, this segment also was the main driver of the massive decline in the operating result in the business year 2018/19. In North America, the expansion activities in the automotive segment led in the business year to significant start-up cost overruns relative to the initial planning. Yet the Tubes & Sections business segment also delivered slightly weaker performance. While the overheating trends of the previous business year in Precision Strip led to weaker but still very solid results, the Warehouse & Rack Solutions segment succeeded in improving its performance yet again compared to its very good performance in the previous business year. Nevertheless, the division’s operating result (EBITDA) declined year over year by more than one third, from EUR 325.2 million (margin of 11.9%) in the previous year to EUR 213.3 million (margin of 7.3%) in the business year 2018/19. The profit from operations (EBIT) even dropped by more than one half, from EUR 212.8 million (margin of 7.8%) to EUR 93.8 million (margin of 3.2%).

The quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) comparison between the third and fourth quarters of 2018/19 shows an improvement in the division’s key performance indicators. Its revenue rose by 13.7% from EUR 698.3 million to EUR 794.0 million, with all four business segments contributing to this outcome. As the increase in start-up costs related to the division’s automotive activities in North America were largely incurred in the third quarter and only to a minor extent in the fourth, the QoQ comparison shows that while the Metal Forming Division succeeded in significantly boosting its results, its performance overall fell short of the expectations at the start of the business year 2018/19, even in the year’s final quarter. Aside from the Automotive Components business segment, the Tubes & Sections business segment also improved its fourth-quarter results over those in the preceding quarter, but the Precision Strip and Warehouse & Rack Solutions business segments delivered stable performance. Against this backdrop, the division’s EBITDA improved between the third and the fourth quarter from EUR 1.2 million (margin of 0.2%) to EUR 59.5 million (margin of 7.5%) and its EBIT from EUR –28.8 million (margin of –4.1%) to EUR 28.2 million (margin of 3.5%).

At 12,240, the number of employees (FTE) in the Metal Forming Division as of March 31, 2019, surpassed the previous year’s figure (12,003) by 2.0%. This increase is largely due to the expansion of activities in the automotive segment.