Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG has announced the company’s plans for the coming year. The group’s order backlog of around €900 million as at March 31, 2022 is the highest in ten years. Like all production companies, however, Heidelberg is facing some sharp increases in material, energy, logistics, and staffing costs that are likely to result in price adjustments.
With substantial efficiency improvements resulted from the package of measures in recent years, Heidelberg is nevertheless confident of being able to improve sales from €2.18 billion to around €2.3 billion in financial year 2022/23 and also increase the EBITDA margin to at least 8 percent.
The group to benefit from growth initiatives focusing on the profitable core markets of packaging printing, digital business models, and the e-mobility sector, which is enjoying dynamic growth. Heidelberg is expecting further double-digit growth in the current year.
The company has claimed significant growth in Group sales and greatly improved cost-efficiency, EBITDA increased to €160 million (previous year: €95 million).
Dr. Ludwin Monz, CEO at Heidelberg said, “Over the past financial year, the company has further strengthened its resilience by significantly improving its sales and results. Financially speaking, the Group is in a better position than for quite some time. In financial year 2022/23, too, we are looking to benefit from this, from the successful growth initiatives focusing on the core markets and our digital business models, and also from our e-mobility success story. That makes us optimistic about being able to counteract the very challenging circumstances, including the huge price increases.”
“We will be keeping a very close eye on the markets so that we can take any necessary countermeasures. As things stand at present, though, we are expecting further growth in sales to around €2.3 billion and – primarily as a result of operational improvements – an increase in the EBITDA margin to at least 8 percent,” added Monz.
The company is predicting a further improvement in the EBITDA margin to a level of at least 8 percent in financial year 2022/23 (FY 2021/22: 7.3 percent). The net result after taxes is also set to increase at least slightly compared with financial year 2021/22 (€33 million).