Posted to News on 4th Dec 2019, 09:35
Lenze is ready for 2020 despite tough market conditions
Following the release of Lenze's 2018/19 Financial Report, Lenze says it is well placed for 2020, despite tough market conditions. According to the figures, Lenze realised a 6.3 per cent increase in revenue during 2018/2019 growing from EUR741M to EUR787.6M and all regions within the Lenze Group (Europe, America, Asia) contributed to this growth.
To meet the increasing demands of digitalisation, the Lenze group made significant financial and personnel investments in skills expansion. In order to meet the company's projected growth and altered skills requirements, a number of new staff were appointed in key areas leading to a rise in the number of employees from 3739 the previous year to 3969. By investing in key skills for the future, Lenze is ensuring it provides its customers with an extensive, further optimised service portfolio as a flexible partner for automation and digitalisation.
The Lenze Group continues to enjoy great financial strength and stability, with positive free cash flow and a stable balance sheet. Net cash flow from operating activities - which is the sum of gross cash flow and change in net working capital - increased by 16.0 per cent to EUR50.2 million year-on-year (previous year: EUR43.4 million). Investments reached a new record level, with net investments of EUR37.5 million once again exceeding the previous year's level by 72.0 per cent (previous year: EUR21.8 million). Despite this much higher level of investment, the Lenze Group had positive free cash flow of EUR12.7 million, liquid assets of EUR72.7 million, a balance sheet of EUR500.8 million and equity capital of EUR316.1 million as of 30 April 2019.
Raw material, production and HR costs rose during this financial year however. As a result, operational earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) and one-off items amounted to EUR52.4 million, but after profit-reducing one-off items, EBIT totalled EUR35.5 million (previous year: EUR65.7 million). The Executive Board has agreed a wide range of efficiency-enhancing measures as part of its FIT2020+ programme, many of which have already begun, to enable the company to improve its profitability in the short to medium term.
Christian Wendler, Chairman of the Executive Board at Lenze Group, comments: "Lenze is well placed to maintain its position, even in choppy business waters! Our commitment to the future is seen in the amount that we have invested in developing and expanding our expertise, preparing the way for extending our leading role in the automation sector. Although it has impacted our 2018/2019 profits, we will reap the benefits of our optimised set-up in the future.
"Despite VDMA predictions that mechanical engineering production will fall by 1.6 per cent in 2019 and even decline by 2.0 per cent in 2020, we are well prepared to maintain our leading position and expect to further increase our market share in the systems business and in Asia. In this respect, we continue to see growth potential for Lenze."
Learn more about the company at www.lenze.com.
