In the first quarter of the business year 2013/14, the Metal Forming Division was able to maintain the results of the immediately preceding quarter despite slightly lower sales. At EUR 597.9 million, revenue was 2.2% below the comparable quarter of the previous business year (EUR 611.1 million) due to the price pressure as a result of lower pre-material prices. As far as results are concerned, this decline was more than compensated, in particular by the implementation of efficiency improvement and cost-cutting measures. At EUR 68.5 million, the operating result (EBITDA) was slightly higher than the figure in the comparable quarter of the previous business year (EUR 68.0 million), an increase of 0.7%. Accordingly, the EBITDA margin of 11.5% was also somewhat higher than in the previous year (11.1%). Profit from operations (EBIT) went up year-over-year by 1.1% and was at EUR 46.1 million as of the end of the first quarter 2013/14 (first quarter of 2012/13: EUR 45.6 million); the EBIT margin was at 7.7%, a slight increase in comparison to the first quarter of the business year 2012/13 (7.5%).
As of the reporting date of June 30, 2013, the number of employees (FTE) was 11,117, a slight decline of 1.4% compared to the same reporting date in the business year 2012/13.