Metal Forming Division

Market environment and business development

The Metal Forming Division succeeded in carrying the previous year’s solid development over into the new business year. Demand from European automotive manufacturers (the division’s most important customer segment) remained high, and vehicle registrations in the European Union in the first six months of 2018 rose by some 3% yet again from the already impressive previous year’s level. At voestalpine’s sites outside of Europe, the focus in the past few months was on starting up new facilities, some of which will be fully operational before the current business year is out and thus should have an increasingly positive impact on the results of the Automotive Components business segment.

The Tubes & Sections business segment was also embedded in a largely positive market environment in the first quarter of 2018/19. Demand in the utility vehicles and agricultural machinery industry as well as in the construction and construction machinery industry—all of which are important customer segments—which was characterized by rising orders in the past business year remained mainly stable. Regionally speaking, with the exception of Great Britain (which is increasingly losing its economic momentum due to the negative Brexit vote) our European core markets exhibited stable growth. After several years of recession, the Brazilian economy presented a slightly improved environment for the local sites of the Tubes & Sections business segment. The US market, in turn, exhibited merely moderate order activity that remained volatile as well as distortions caused not least by protectionist tariffs.

The signs of overheating, which had affected the Precision Strip business segment in the previous year, were replaced at the start of the current business year by “merely” solid order activity on customer’s part.

The previous years’ positive momentum in the Warehouse & Rack Solutions segment continued at the start of the business year 2018/19 as well. Supported by strong e-commerce demand for high-bay warehouses and storage systems, which remains unabated, full utilization of our production capacities is already assured at least up to the end of the current business year.

Financial key performance indicators

The financial indicators of the Metal Forming Division for the first quarter of the business year 2018/19 show a substantial increase in revenue due mainly to the distinctive improvement in the Automotive Components business segment as a result of the continued expansion of its international activities. While the Tubes & Sections business segment also succeeded in lifting its revenue year over year, revenue in the two smaller business segments—Precision Strip and Warehouse & Rack Solutions—dropped slightly in a year-over-year comparison. In sum, the division’s revenue rose year over year by 11.2% from EUR 672.7 million in the first quarter of 2017/18 to EUR 748.0 million in the reporting quarter. As far as earnings are concerned, however, the Metal Forming Division posted a slight decline due primarily to the weaker performance of the Tubes & Sections business segment—not least on account of the diminished earnings contribution from the United States as a result of customers’ increasingly volatile order activity since protectionist tariffs were introduced. Against this backdrop, the operating result (EBITDA) fell by 4.7% from EUR 88.6 million (margin of 13.2%) in the first quarter of 2017/18 to EUR 84.4 million (margin of 11.3%) in the first quarter of 2018/19. The profit from operations (EBIT) fell in the same period by 9.1% from EUR 61.3 million to EUR 55.7 million, causing the EBIT margin to drop from 9.1% to 7.5%.

As of June 30, 2018, the Metal Forming Division had 11,938 employees (FTE). This equals an increase of 5.6% compared with the previous business year’s corresponding reporting date (11,300), largely due to the expansion of the non-European sites in the automotive business segment.