Clear rise in Vossloh's H1/2003 sales and earningse
Endorsement of increased full-year forecastIn H1/2003, the Vossloh Group showed sales of €367.6 million, a 21-percent improvement over the year-earlier €305.0 million.
During this period, Group EBIT climbed to €49.4 million, more than twice the prior year's €22.2 million, the EBIT margin advancing from 7.3 to now 13.4 percent.
EBIT for H1/2003 contains a net gain of €14.5 million from the transfer on January 2, 2003, of the final one-third stake in the VAE Group. Adjusted for this, EBIT increased by €12.7 million to €34.9 million, the EBIT margin then equaling 9.5 percent.
At €31.3 million, Group earnings reported for H1/2003 easily more than doubled, from €13.1 million in H1/2002 to €31.3 million. This results in an EpS of €2.24 compared with €0.96 for the same period the previous year. Whereas this year's H1 earnings include the tax-free gain of a net €14.5 million from the transfer of the VAE stake, the earnings reported for H1/2002 had subsumed a net gain from the sale of the Lighting division (€5.9 million). Discounting both of these one-time factors, Group earnings show a rise of 133 percent.
All the business units shared in this steep sales rise: Vossloh Information Technologies soared by 80+ percent over its year-earlier sales figure; Vossloh Fastening Systems achieved a growth of almost 17 percent; and Vossloh Locomotives just under 11 percent. Acquired in late 2002, the Vossloh Electrical Systems unit inputted sales of almost €39 million to Group sales. Together, Vossloh Switch Systems and Vossloh Infrastructure Services generated H1/2003 sales of €177 million, these former Cogifer companies thus topping the H1/2002 sales (which had included the VAE Group) of €174.8 million.
Prompted by H1/2003 business, Vossloh AG's Executive Board reaffirms its sales and earnings forecasts, upped recently in May for all of 2003. Originally budgeted at a good €870 million, Group sales are now predicted at €890 million while EBIT, initially forecast at €95 million, should climb to €97 million. This means that sales are expected to surge almost 20 percent above the year-earlier €744.5 million. The EBIT expected for 2003 would exceed the previous year's €78.4 million by around 24 percent, the EBIT margin thus advancing from 10.5 to 10.9 percent.
Hitherto budgeted at €52 million and now targeted at €53.5 million, Group earnings would beat the already high year-earlier €52.4 million. As to ROCE, this is reckoned to reach 15 percent (up from 13.3 percent)
Werdohl, July 29, 2003
For more information:
Werner Andree, Vossloh AG, phone: (+49-2392) 52407
The full text of the H1/2003 report is available at publications