Order books at Rosenbauer are well filled

Vienna / Leonding. (apa / kle) In the first nine months, fire service provider Rosenbauer slightly increased operating income while retaining its net profit. Sales decreased due to new accounting rules. To this end, the listed group in Upper Austria has significantly increased its order book and new orders, with an order book of 1.1 billion euros.

The turnover has fallen from 604.5 to 552.0 million euros in the first three quarters, said Rosenbauer Tuesday. New orders rose from 654.4 million euros to 789.9 million euros, bringing the order book at the end of September from 803.4 million euros to 1,094 euros. billion euros. In five out of six segments, new orders increased over the previous year, according to the Leonding-based company near Linz.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) increased year-on-year, from 29.7 million EUR to 31.0 million EUR. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) increased from EUR 14.8 million to EUR 17.0 million and the EBIT margin increased from 2.5 to 3.1% of turnover. Meanwhile, the net profit remained virtually identical to 10.6 million euros (after 11.1 million euros).

Challenging environment
Rosenbauer is currently facing a challenging environment: trade disputes with the United States are slowing global economic growth more and more, the global fire-fighting industry benefiting from the economic environment (always) positive for the first nine months and continuing its stable development. Demand is picking up in the Middle East and the European market is expected to continue to grow this year. In North America, this year's volume of purchases may well exceed the long-term average of 4,000 vehicles.

The outlook indicates that management is targeting higher sales and significantly higher profits in 2018 than in the previous year. This is not quantified in the nine-month report. In August, management said consolidated sales should reach more than 900 million euros for the full year and the EBIT margin should exceed 5%.

The number of employees during the reporting period was 3,546 employees, after 3,374 a year earlier.