Olma Messen AG with positive figures in 2023
Published: Wednesday, Mar 20th 2024, 13:50
Volver a Live Feed
Olma Messen St. Gallen AG achieved an operating profit of CHF 2.4 million in 2023. However, after deducting depreciation and amortization, taxes and interest, a loss of 1.4 million francs resulted, according to CFO Stefan Saxer. Around nine million francs of the targeted 20 million francs in share capital are still missing.
"The Olma business is on track. The profit is a significant improvement on the previous year," said Thomas Scheitlin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Olma Messen St. Gallen AG, at the media conference on Wednesday morning. In 2022, the operating profit was still CHF 0.8 million.
In 2023, five in-house events, including Olma in the fall and Offa in the spring, as well as 126 events such as corporate events, congresses and guest exhibitions would have taken place on the Olma exhibition grounds. Olma Messen is set to grow further in these core areas.
Christine Bolt, Director of Olma Messen, also expressed her satisfaction: "Our business model is working, developments are heading in the right direction." Olma Messen will certainly have until the end of 2024 to find further share capital.
In search of further share capital
Raising the share capital is taking longer than originally thought, Christine Bolt told the Keystone-SDA news agency. A further six million francs are to come from the economy and three million francs from the population.
When asked, those responsible for Olma also spoke about the future of hall nine. The Federal Roads Office (Astra) is planning to build a third tube in order to renovate the existing tubes of the Rosenberg Tunnel as part of the city highway and to eliminate bottlenecks.
Hall nine will also be affected by the construction work. There are three possible scenarios: the hall could be placed on stilts during the construction of the additional tube. However, partial dismantling of the hall or even complete demolition are also under discussion.
Astra compensates the Olma trade fairs
"Astra will indemnify Olma financially for all expenses incurred by Olma Messen in connection with the third tube," explained Christine Bolt. This also includes the possible construction of a new hall.
Hall nine is indispensable for Olma Messen, emphasized Bolt. On the one hand, the layout of the hall is specifically designed for the congress business. On the other hand, demolition would also result in the loss of exhibition and exhibitor space, which is used during the Olma in the fall, for example. A replacement for hall nine would therefore be absolutely essential, according to Bolt. In the event of such a scenario, Thomas Scheitlin added that temporary accommodation would also be considered.
Olma Messen has run into financial difficulties in recent years: Cancellations of trade fairs, conferences and events due to the Covid-19 pandemic had an impact on liquidity. Added to this was inflation, which increased the cost of building the new hall by an additional CHF 10 million.
The Olma trade fairs needed support: the city and canton initially granted loans of 8.4 million Swiss francs each, which were then waived with a second aid package. As a further consequence, the Olma management decided to convert the cooperative into a public limited company with a share capital of 20 million francs.
©Keystone/SDA
Spanish 
English 
German 
French 
Arabic