Financial key performance indicators

The revenue of the Metal Forming Division fell slightly by 3.4%, from EUR 2,937.4 million in the previous year to EUR 2,838.3 million in the business year 2019/20. While the downward trend encompassed the division on the whole, a heterogeneous picture emerges when it is broken down by business segment: Warehouse & Rack Solutions saw an increase in revenue, the trend in Automotive Components was stable, but Tubes & Sections and Precision Strip both posted declines. EBITDA fell year over year by 4.7%, from EUR 213.3 million (margin of 7.3%) in the previous business year to EUR 203.3 million (margin of 7.2%) in the reporting period. With two exceptions, EBITDA at the level of the business segments was commensurate with revenue performance: Warehouse & Rack Solutions remained steady at the previous year’s level. The Automotive Components business segment posted a slight increase in EBITDA over the previous year during which the site in Cartersville, Georgia, USA, incurred higher start-up expenses as well as non-recurring effects from provisions set up on account of external shifts in order activity. The start-up costs were gradually lowered over the course of the business year ended. Due to the distortions in the automotive sector and their impact on the supplier industry, however, a total of EUR 24 million in provisions as well as write-downs on inventories were recognized for the reporting period. Initial negative effects related to the COVID-19 pandemic were incurred in the fourth quarter of the business year 2019/20 due to automakers’ temporary plant closures.

The Metal Forming Division was hit by impairment losses of EUR 52 million in the reporting period largely on account of Hot Forming including Cartersville (Automotive Components business segment). Consequently, EBIT plunged by 90.6% year over year, from EUR 93.8 million (margin of 3.2%) in the business year 2018/19 to EUR 8.8 million (margin of 0.3%) in the business year 2019/20.

The quarter-on-quarter comparison (QoQ) of the reporting period’s third and fourth quarters shows that the Metal Forming Division succeeded in boosting revenue by 7.7%, from EUR 666.7 million to EUR 718.3 million. All business segments with the exception of Warehouse & Rack Solutions contributed to this increase. The recovery was particularly pronounced in both Automotive Components and Tubes & Sections due to the seasonally low level in the third quarter of the business year 2019/20. These two important business segments largely created the conditions for the division’s success in more than doubling EBITDA, from EUR 31.8 million in the third quarter to EUR 64.4 million in the fourth, thus also raising the EBITDA margin from 4.8% to 9.0%. Note in this connection that the aforementioned non-recurring effects impacting EBITDA were largely incurred in the third business quarter. Only minor non-recurring effects based on EBITDA were incurred in the fourth quarter.

At EUR 14.6 million, the Metal Forming Division managed to bring EBIT back into positive territory in the fourth quarter of the business year 2019/20, after posting EBIT of EUR –43.9 million in the preceding quarter. This significant increase is due only in part to an improvement at the operating level. In a manner comparable to the non-recurring effects related to the development of EBITDA over the business year, the aforementioned year-over-year impairment losses at Hot Forming including Cartersville largely affect third-quarter EBIT. In the fourth quarter, impairment losses were much lower. As a result, the EBIT margin rose QoQ from –6.6% to 2.0%.

At 11,633, the number of employees (FTE) in the Metal Forming Division as of March 31, 2020, was 5.0% less than the previous year’s figure (12,240). This reduction in personnel is due primarily to low capacity utilization in the automotive industry’s component plants toward the close of the business year 2019/20 because a growing number of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) temporarily shut down their plants owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.