Development of the key figures

In the 2011/12 business year, the Special Steel Division experienced significant increases in revenue and operating result, thus almost attaining its pre-crisis level.

Compared to the previous year, revenue rose by 11.9% from EUR 2,631.3 million to EUR 2,945.0 million. Improvement of EBIT was even more striking, climbing by almost one third from EUR 208.5 million to EUR 272.9 million. Therefore, the EBIT margin for the 2011/12 business year went up from 7.9% to 9.3%. This gratifying trend in the operating result was enabled primarily by the expansion of divisional capacity, thus making greater production and delivery volumes possible.

Compared to the immediately preceding quarter, the division also showed a rising trend: revenue in the fourth quarter of the business year experienced a boost of 11.0%, mainly due to increases in volumes in the High Performance Metals (tool steel) segment, going from EUR 701.9 million to EUR 779.4 million. Compared to the third quarter, the operating result rose by an impressive 38.1% from EUR 55.1 million to EUR 76.1 million, with a corresponding improvement in the EBIT margin in the last quarter of the business year 2011/12 from 7.8% to 9.8%.

As of March 2012, the Special Steel Division had 12,363 employees (full-time equivalents¹). Compared to the previous year’s figure (11,995), this corresponds to an increase of 3.1%.