For fiscal 2017, Lenzing Group, a supplier of global textile and nonwovens industry with high-quality, botanic cellulose fibres, has recorded revenue growth of 5.9 per cent to €2.26 billion. The company has recorded high revenue and earnings due to a better product mix and higher selling prices in combination with a generally favourable market environment.
The company EBITDA improved by 17.3 per cent to €502.5 million (2016: €428.3 million). The corresponding EBITDA margin rose to 22.2 per cent (2016: 20.1 per cent). For the reported period, EBIT increased 25.2 per cent to € 371 million, resulting in a higher EBIT margin of 16.4 per cent (2016: 13.9 per cent). The net profit for the year totaled €281.7 million, a rise of 23 per cent from the prior-year €229.1 million. Earnings per share in the 2017 amounted to € 10.47 (2016: €8.48).
The return on capital employed increased to 18.6 per cent in 2017 compared to 15.1 per cent in 2016 and adjusted equity increased by 9.9 per cent to €1.53 billion from the prior-year level of €1.39 billion.
“The Lenzing Group looks back at a very successful year 2017. We continued to implement our corporate strategy sCore TEN with great discipline and focus on our investment projects and successfully captured value in a positive market environment. Our commitment to innovation and customer centricity was underpinned by the opening of an application innovation center in Hong Kong and the creation of the new sales and marketing office in Turkey. In line with sCore TEN we decided to revamp our brand architecture and image to sharpen Lenzing’s corporate and product profiles for customers and consumers. We want to put a stronger emphasis on our ambition to make the textile and nonwoven market more sustainable,” said Stefan Doboczky, chief executive officer of the Lenzing Group.
In 2017, the Lenzing Group presented a number of game changing sustainability innovations, that underline the ongoing transformation of Lenzing into a genuine specialist player focused on high-quality botanic materials made from the sustainable raw material wood. In September last year, the Lenzing Group opened a new textile application innovation center in Hong Kong, thus setting a further milestone in strengthening its innovation offering to all partners along the value chain.
The International Monetary Fund expects a further acceleration in global economic growth to 3.7 percent in 2018. The Lenzing Group sees a number of, in part contradictory, factors which limit the visibility over fibre prices in 2018. The prices for several key raw materials, e.g. caustic soda, remain at a very high level and their further development is difficult to estimate. These general conditions are expected to form the basis for a challenging market environment in the standard viscose fibre business during the coming quarters; coupled with anticipated negative exchange rate fluctuations, the Lenzing Group expects its results for 2018 to be lower than the outstanding results in the last two years.
“We are very positive about our chosen strategy as it will help us to be more resilient as we expect more headwinds in the upcoming quarters,” concluded Doboczky.
