29-Jul-2016

Press release

Summary & download

Bekaert continues performance improvement trend

8.6% REBIT, up 40% to € 157 million on strong volume growth and improved
business performance

Highlights (1)
Bekaert achieved strong volume and margin growth in the first half of 2016. The Group's 6% volume growth(2) stemmed from firm demand in automotive and solar markets and steadily increasing sales volumes in industrial steel wire and construction markets. The robust volume growth was more than offset in Bekaert's top line by adverse currency movements (-3%), lower wire rod prices (-4%) which we pass on to our customers, and price erosion and mix effects (-3%). The slowdown in oil and gas markets affected the product-mix due to declining demand for profiled wires and steel ropes.
Bekaert's overall stronger business portfolio and the growing impact of the various global transformation programs drove a significant profit improvement. REBIT increased by 40% to € 157 million at a REBIT margin on sales of 8.6%, compared with 5.9% in the first half of 2015.
Bekaert achieved excellent results in EMEA (13.6% REBIT margin), very strong margin growth in Asia Pacific (12.2%, more than doubling the margin of the first half of 2015) and Latin America (9.3% REBIT margin, up 70%), and improved margins in North America (4.8%, up 30%).
• Consolidated sales of € 1.8 billion (-4%) and combined sales of € 2.1 billion (-8%)
• Currency impact: € -63 million (-3%) on consolidated sales; € -141 million (-6%) on combined sales
• Gross profit of € 347 million (19% margin) compared with € 304 million (16% margin)
• REBIT of € 157 million (8.6% margin) compared with € 112 million (5.9% margin)
• Non-recurring items of € -13.7 million compared with € -2.5 million
• EBIT of € 144 million (7.9% margin) compared with € 110 million (5.8% margin)
• REBITDA of € 259 million (14.3% margin) compared with € 219 million (11.5% margin)
• EBITDA of € 242 million (13.3% margin) compared with € 217 million (11.4% margin)
• Net debt of € 1 151 million, including € 298 million acquisition impact of the Bridon merger deal. Net debt on EBITDA was 2.4, unchanged from the same period last year and up from 1.9 at year-end 2015. Excluding the Bridon impact, net debt on EBITDA was 1.8, slightly down from year-end 2015.

Outlook

Bekaert's actions to drive value creation have begun to show their effectiveness through strong profit growth and robust cash generation. We project continued strong demand from automotive, solar and construction markets in the second half of the year.
However, we do see an increased impact from the low activity in global oil and gas markets, both in Bekaert's specialty steel wire platform as well as through the consolidation of the Bridon ropes business which will pull Bekaert's profit performance down in the second half of the year. We are concerned about the continued weak economic environment in Latin America. We also project some slowdown in Europe from growing uncertainty and lack of confidence following Britain's choice to leave the European Union and we anticipate normal seasonality for the second half of the year.
Despite this caution over the second half, we remain confident we will continue to outperform the market environment over coming months and we believe we will end the year ahead of our target goal of 7% REBIT, achieving between 7% and 8% REBIT for full year 2016.

en fr nl

Bekaert NV published this content on 29 July 2016 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 29 July 2016 05:32:02 UTC.

Original documenthttp://www.bekaert.com/en/about-us/news-room/news/bekaert-half-year-results-2016

Public permalinkhttp://www.publicnow.com/view/CFC1C8A01D0C64F4A8E6B70C3CC71D2C6F2584EB