PACKAGING DRIVES HEIDELBERG GROWTH

Thanks to strong demand from western countries, along with sustained growth in the packaging segment, and with an order backlog of almost €1bn, Heidelberg says it is is well on track to meet its 2023 sales target of €2.3bn.

Its third quarter and nine-month figures show that packaging presses are approaching the same volumes as commercial presses. Sales for packaging machines reached €812m after nine months, 22 per cent higher than the year before. In commercial printing, sales after nine months climbed to €898m.

In the third quarter, from October to December, the Group bucked the general trend in the mechanical engineering industry by recording stable incoming orders of €630m. At €609m, sales in the third quarter were around five per cent up on the equivalent quarter of the previous year.

Adjusted for non-recurring effects, EBITDA was €18m higher than in the previous year, primarily due to the positive impact of rising sales.

Thanks to the good performance in terms of sales and incoming orders and the significant improvement in the operating result, the company is confirming its forecast for financial year 2022/23 as a whole.

“We had a positive third quarter and were able to further increase our sales and operating result. Looking ahead, the coming months will continue to be affected by the expected increases in material, energy, and personnel costs,” said Dr Ludwin Monz, CEO, Heidelberg.

“We will continue to counter this through price rises and maintain our cost discipline. We are therefore very confident of achieving our targets for the year,” he added.

Incoming orders after nine months remained stable compared with the year before. Despite economic uncertainties, they totalled €1.86bn, with the previous year at : €1.88bn. Sales in all three quarters of the current financial year exceeded the respective figures for the year before. At €1.73bn, the nine-month total was 10 per cent up on the previous year’s €1.56bn

Adjusted for non-recurring effects in the current and previous financial years, EBITDA after nine months was around €56m higher than the year before. In the third quarter, the operating result improved by €18 million compared with the previous year. 

Packaging printing exhibited particularly strong growth in the third quarter. Incoming orders from October to the end of December 2022 were 18 per cent up on the previous year’s figure. Over the nine-month period, order intake improved by 5 per cent compared with the same period of the previous year.

Heidelberg stands by its forecast for financial year 2022/23. The company continues to expect sales figures to increase to around €2.3bn, up from €2.18bn last year. Despite the likelihood of cost increases, profitability is also set to improve further. Heidelberg is still predicting a further rise in the EBITDA margin to at least 8 percent for the 2022/23 financial year compared with the previous year’s 7.3 percent). The net result after taxes is also expected to improve slightly compared with last year which was €33m.

Heidelberg’s impressive growth in its electric vehicle charging stations business was curtailed by changes to Germany’s incentive policy.