Wed, Mar 13th 2024
Stadler Rail bounces back from the previous year’s slump, marking a record net profit since its IPO.
After the slump in the previous year, train manufacturer Stadler Rail earned more again in 2023. Net profit rose to 138.6 million Swiss francs.
This is the highest figure since the IPO. A year earlier, the eastern Swiss company had suffered a dip to 75.1 million Swiss francs.
The significant increase in the Group result was due in particular to lower currency losses in the financial result than in the previous year. “In addition, significantly higher interest income was recorded due to the high level of liquidity,” Stadler wrote.
The operating profit EBIT fell by 11% to 183.3 million Swiss francs and the EBIT margin to 5.1% after 5.5% in the previous year. Without the negative currency effects, Stadler would have achieved an EBIT in line with expectations, it said.
Sales fell by 4% to 3.61 billion Swiss francs. According to the company, currency developments alone cost almost 100 million francs.
Incoming orders also slumped by a fifth to 6.8 billion Swiss francs, but this is still the second-best result in the company’s history (2021: 5.6 billion). Two major orders worth around 1.2 billion Swiss francs were postponed beyond the end of the year, it said.
Nevertheless, the order backlog reached a new record of CHF 24.4 billion. This means that the order backlog is 2.4 billion Swiss francs higher than twelve months ago.
Shareholders are to receive an unchanged dividend of CHF 0.90 per share.
In the Rolling Stock division in particular, sales slumped by CHF 2.3 billion to CHF 5.0 billion. The previous year had included major orders worth several billion, Stalder wrote.
Things are not looking up in the new 2024 financial year either. Stadler expects turnover of 3.5 to 3.7 billion Swiss francs.
The EBIT margin is expected to be at a comparable level to 2023. Stadler again expects to invest around CHF 200 million in 2024 to provide the necessary capacity.
An improvement is only predicted for the 2025 financial year: Stadler then expects sales of between 4.0 and 4.2 billion Swiss francs and an EBIT margin of around 7 percent. In 2025, Stadler also expects investments of around 200 million Swiss francs.
While there may be help coming in 2025 and beyond, the market has not shifted with this news in any serious way. The price has been falling since IPO consistently. Their EBIT is expected to stay the same as last years, stocks are almost at record lows.
©Keystone/SDA
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