ThyssenKrupp in fiscal year 2007/2008

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

28 Nov 2008

ThyssenKrupp again achieved excellent results in fiscal 2007/2008. Executive Board Chairman Dr. Ekkehard Schulz: “They validate our strategy of further focusing the Group in its conglomerate structure and going for long-term sustainable and profitable growth.” The key data of fiscal 2007/2008: Earnings before taxes were €3,128 million (fiscal year 2006/2007: €3,330 million). Earnings before taxes and major nonrecurring items came to €3.5 billion, exceeding our raised forecast of August 2008 of over €3.2 billion.
•    Demand for the Group’s products and services increased further. Order intake reached €55.2 billion, compared with €54.6 billion in fiscal 2006/2007.
•    Sales at €53.4 billion (€51.7 billion) were higher than forecast and higher year-on-year.
•    Earnings per share reached €4.59, up 7 percent from fiscal 2006/2007 (€4.30).
•    The solid earnings situation allows us to continue our policy of dividend continuity. In January 2009, the Executive Board and Supervisory Board will propose to the Annual General Meeting the payment of an unchanged dividend of €1.30 per share. Compared with the first dividend in 1998/1999 of DM1.40 - or €0.72 - the payout has now almost doubled. In addition, in the past two years the Group has repurchased around 10 percent of its shares.
•    Net financial debt amounted to €1.58 billion. Schulz: “With cash and cash equivalents of €2.8 billion and unused committed credit facilities of €4.6 billion, we are starting the new fiscal year on a very solid financial footing.”
•    ROCE stood at 18.3% in the past fiscal year, compared with 20.7% in fiscal 2006/2007.
•    The Group’s equity ratio was 27.6 percent at the end of the fiscal year, almost unchanged from a year earlier (2006/2007: 27.4 percent).
•    ThyssenKrupp employed 199,374 people worldwide on September 30, 2008, 4% more than at the end of the previous fiscal year (191,350). 85,097 of these were employed in Germany, roughly the same as in the prior year.
•    The share purchases by the management illustrate our confidence in ThyssenKrupp’s value potential.
In the uncertain environment of the financial crisis, ThyssenKrupp has reviewed its plans and targets for the current fiscal year 2008/2009. The downturn in the auto, machinery and construction industries will also leave its mark on ThyssenKrupp. Schulz: “We therefore face a significant drop in sales in 2008/2009, the extent of which cannot yet be predicted. This will have a corresponding effect on earnings. The increasing uncertainty on the financial and real markets makes it impossible to provide a quantifiable forecast at this time. We will supply more concrete information on the current fiscal year in our quarterly reporting”. If - as currently predicted - the global economy emerges from the downturn and gathers momentum again in 2010, ThyssenKrupp will also return to its long-term growth track.
To safeguard earnings and liquidity ThyssenKrupp has taken clear steps to reduce costs in the Group, lower net working capital and flexibilize the investment program. These measures will be supported by the continuation of our portfolio optimizations.
Schulz: “We are firmly convinced that the growth strategy we launched in 2005 is right. The financial crisis may cause delays, but the long-term success of the Company will remain unaffected”.
In the medium to longer term, in particular after the start-up of the Steel and Stainless segments’ major investments in North and South America and those of the other segments in other regions, we expect to achieve earnings before taxes and major nonrecurring items of €4 to 5 billion and sales of €60 to 65 billion.

Source: ThyssenKrupp