Business performance of the voestalpine Group

Despite the definite cooling of the macroeconomic environment in practically all of the major global economic regions, the voestalpine Group reported a largely stable performance in the last twelve months—apart from some seasonal fluctuations—both with regard to revenue and results. On one hand, this is due to the Group’s concentration on market segments that are focused on technology and innovation and whose performance tends to be more sound structurally due to their high entry barriers than market segments that deal with commodity products. On the other hand, the company’s quick reaction to framework conditions that substantially deteriorated during the course of the year also had a significant role in the positive development. In addition to classic cost-cutting measures, it was primarily efficiency and productivity improvement programs that made it possible to attain results that were far more positive than the industry average. It is important to note that this was achieved despite a continuing commitment to research and development and ongoing investments in high-tech production facilities with incurring significant expenditures to run these facilities.

In comparison to the first quarter of the last business year, revenue dropped by 3.8% to EUR 2,936.1 million (first quarter of 2012/13: EUR 3,050.6 million), which was mainly caused by falling raw material prices, with all divisions sharing equally in this reduction.

As far as results are concerned, the aforementioned internal measures were quite successful in counteracting this trend. At EUR 366.3 million, the operating result (EBITDA) in the quarter under review varied only slightly compared to the previous year’s figure of EUR 372.4 million (–1.6%). Due to lower revenue, the EBITDA margin even rose from 12.2% in the previous year to 12.5% in the reporting quarter.

Profit from operations (EBIT) followed an analogous pattern with a slight decrease of 2.1% year-over-year from EUR 228.0 million in the past business year to EUR 223.3 million in the quarter under review. During the same reporting period, the EBIT margin rose marginally from 7.5% in the previous year to 7.6% in the past quarter.

It should be noted that all divisions increased their margins compared to the first quarter of the previous year both with regard to operating result and profit from operations.

Another contribution—albeit still a relatively small one—to the positive margin figures came from the results posted by the Group’s newest acquisitions.

Profit before tax (EBT) came to EUR 179.9 million, a slight decline of 2.8% compared to the first quarter of 2012/13 (EUR 185.1 million). At EUR 138.6 million, profit for the period is 4.3% below that of the first quarter of 2012/13 (EUR 144.9 million), not least due to a slightly higher tax rate year-over-year.

Equity rose as of the reporting date of June 30, 2013 to EUR 5,159.9 million compared to the reporting sheet date of March 31, 2013 (EUR 5,075.3 million), an increase of 1.7%. At EUR 2,272.4 million as of the end of June 2013, net financial debt during the period under review remained largely stable (EUR 2,259.2 million as of March 31, 2013).

Therefore, the gearing ratio (net financial debt in percent of equity) fell during the first quarter of 2013/14 by 0.5 percentage points to 44.0%.