The company announced on Wednesday that its earnings after taxes fell from 213 million to 150 million euros year-on-year. Sales fell from 4.4 billion to 4.1 billion euros. The poor economic environment and a further devaluation of the German Buderus Edelstahl pushed the figures down. The number of employees remained stable.
In the course of the ongoing sale of Buderus Edelstahl, Voest had to make a further write-down of EUR 28 million in the first quarter of this year “due to binding offers that have since been received” – after unscheduled write-downs in the High Performance Metals Division amounting to EUR 181 million.
This also had a noticeable impact on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), which fell by 16.5 percent from 499 to 417 million euros between April and June this year, the listed company further announced.
Profit “at the lower end of the communicated range”
The sale of the German company Buderus Edelstahl is “the consistent implementation of the group’s strategy to focus the materials sector on the highest quality spectrum”.
When it came to the outlook for the entire fiscal year (until the end of March 2025), management backtracked slightly: operating profit (EBITDA) is expected to be “at the lower end of the communicated range of 1.7 to 1.8 billion euros.” In 2023/24, EBITDA fell from 2.54 billion to 1.67 billion euros.
In the first quarter of 2024/25, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) fell by more than a quarter (almost 27 percent), from EUR 311 million to EUR 228 million. Profit before taxes fell from EUR 273 million to EUR 189 million. Cash flow from operating activities rose “significantly from EUR 10 million in the previous year to EUR 215 million currently.” voestalpine’s workforce grew slightly from 51,200 to 51,400 full-time equivalents worldwide (plus 0.4 percent).
Nothing new about the accounting scandal
At the end of June, the Group’s debt rose by 6.3 percent to 1.8 billion euros compared to the balance sheet date (March 31, 2024), and equity rose by 0.8 percent to 7.6 billion euros. The gearing ratio (net financial debt in relation to equity) increased from 22 to 23.2 percent in the period.
For the time being, there is nothing new about the accounting scandal: The investigation into the “deliberately earnings-improving mispostings” totaling around 100 million euros over eleven years (2012/13 to 2023/24) at a German company in the Metal Forming Division is currently still ongoing. “voestalpine will inform about the results once the final report is available,” it said. Whether there will be civil lawsuits or criminal charges can only be decided once the results are available. A specialized auditing company and a German law firm have been called in. The accounting consequences have been corrected retrospectively and fully taken into account in the 2023/24 annual financial statements.
