Heidelberg has successful start to new financial year

“As we start the new financial year, Heidelberg is well on the way to achieving its targets for the year,” said Deputy CEO and CFO Dirk Kaliebe.
The Germany-based press manufacturer has made a successful start to a very challenging financial year 2015/2016. Provisional calculations for the first quarter (April 1 – June 30, 2015) show that the company’s strategic re-orientation is taking effect, with improvements in both sales and operating results. A good trade show in China, additional service business as a result of the PSG takeover, and exchange rate movements have improved incoming orders to around € 700 million (previous year: € 588 million). Thanks to a healthy order backlog at the beginning of the quarter, higher service-related sales, and exchange-rate movements, sales also increased – to about € 560 million (previous year: € 435 million).
The operating result was also much better than in the previous year. EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) were € 46 million (previous year: € 6 million) and EBIT € 28 million (previous year: € -11 million). Income from the takeover of the PSG Group totaling about € 19 million has had a positive impact on both these figures, said the OEM. Excluding the income from the PSG transaction, the operating EBITDA margin rose to around 5% (previous year: 1.4%). This income compensated for expenditures of about € 15 million resulting from partial retirement agreements concluded in the previous year, which had to be included under special items. EBIT including special items thus improved on balance from € 11 million to € 13 million.