Vossloh off to a good start in fiscal 2004
Clear sales gain in Q1/2004 / 12-month earnings forecast reaffirmedThe Vossloh Group launched successfully into fiscal 2004 with Q1 sales up by 8.2 percent or €15.0 million to €198.2 million over the year-earlier figure. It was the commendable performance by the two business units Vossloh Locomotives and Vossloh Information Technologies that brought about this increase.
In comparing Q1/2004 earnings with Q1/2003, it should be borne in mind that the figures for 2003 had included a net €14.5 million from tax-free gains from the disposal of the stake in Austria's VAE Group, less provisions for risks. Eliminating these nonrecurring factors, the first three months of the current fiscal period showed an EBIT rise of 13.2 percent from €14.4 million to €16.3 million. The comparable EBIT margin advanced from 7.9 to 8.2 percent.
Unadjusted for these nonrecurrent gains, Q1 EBIT shrank from €28.9 million in 2003 to €16.3 million, the EBIT margin from 15.8 to 8.2 percent, group earnings from €20.8 million to €8.5 million, and EpS from €1.52 to €0.58.
As of March 31, 2004, the Vossloh Group's total assets amounted to €883.4 million (up €4.2 million from €879.2 million). Major changes were in equity and financial debts, the former climbing by €50.6 million, from €256.3 million to €306.9 million, the latter scaled back by around €42.8 million during the same period. Versus 12 months earlier, the equity ratio rose 5.6 percentage points to 34.8 percent.
Annualized ROCE as a ratio of EBIT to capital employed fell 9.7 percentage points from 20.4 to 10.7 percent compared with Q1/2003. Adjusted for the nonrecurrent gains posted in 2003, ROCE advanced by 0.6 percentage points, despite the increase in capital employed from €569.2 million to €611.7 million.
Despite the higher capital employed due to the increased working capital (up by over €45 million from €189.9 million to €236.4 million), net financial debts were slashed by over €30 million from €196.3 million to €163.6 million. As net financial debts were clearly lower and equity higher, the net leverage as of March 31, 2004, was at 53.3 percent down by 23+ percentage points from the year-earlier figure.
At March 31, 2004, the Vossloh Group employed a workforce of 4,332, up by 3.9 percent over the year-earlier 4,168. The increase was chiefly due to the first-time inclusion in Q2/2003 of Vossloh Skamo in the Rail Infrastructure division.
For all of 2004, the Group expects its EBIT as projected to rise a good 5 percent to around €106 million, despite the nonrecurrence of the gains booked in 2003. Due to some delays in the placement of budgeted contracts, Vossloh at present cannot rule out that the €960 million sales targeted for 2004 will not quite be achieved. Group earnings are set to climb 2.5 percent to €56.9 million, equivalent to an EpS of around €3.90. ROCE should be just short of 16 percent, thus once more in excess of the corporate benchmark of 15 percent.
Werdohl, April 27, 2004
For more information contact:
Christiane Konrad, Vossloh AG,
phone (+49-2392) 52-249
The full interim report is published at
www.vossloh.com