Muehlhan AG : Muehlhan publishes Annual Report 2011

PRESS RELEASE

? Sales revenues of EUR 172 million at upper end of projected range

? Company once again recognizes goodwill impairment and bad debt losses

Once again, Europe was the primary driver of sales revenues, with this region contributing EUR 135 million, or 80% of all sales; at the same time, Muehlhan generated around 8% more sales than in the previous year (2010: EUR 125 million). Even more significant was the almost 60% increase in EBIT, from EUR 6 million in 2010 to EUR 9.5 million in 2011. In North America, sales revenues remained steady, at just under EUR 20 million. Nevertheless, due to the aforementioned non-recurring charges, Muehlhan still had to report a loss of EUR -3.1 million in the USA in 2011 (2010: EUR -5.2 million). The same applies to the Asian businesses: the negative EBIT reported in 2010 decreased even further, with Muehlhan posting a EUR -2.5 million loss on a 19% decrease in sales (2011: EUR 16 million).
As expected, the Ship Newbuilding activities reported a drop in sales from EUR 56 million in fiscal year 2010 to just EUR 36 million in 2011. Basically, all market players experienced a significant decline in the volume of business in this segment, as a large part of this industry has shifted to Asia. Despite having a presence in the region, the protracted start-up phase for shipbuilding activities at shipyard customers' sites in the Persian Gulf, combined with the associated start-up costs, prevented us from posting an improvement in earnings (2011 EBIT: EUR -3.6 million, compared with profits of EUR 1.9 million in 2010).
Thanks to our reputation for quality and on-time delivery, Muehlhan AG managed to attract new Ship Repair orders despite the market's underlying weakness. At EUR 33.7 million, sales revenues were EUR 4.7 million, or 16%, higher than in the previous year (2010: EUR 29.0 million). At just under EUR
0.6 million, the contribution to earnings was also positive (2010: EUR 1.0 million).
In the Industry business, the U.S. bridge sector in particular turned in an impressive performance, with increases in both sales and earnings in fiscal year 2011, in contrast to the project losses during the previous year. Despite the weak fire-proofing business in the Middle East, the Industry Services reported steady sales revenues of EUR 27 million and a positive EBIT of EUR 1.4 million (2010: EUR -
1.2 million).
The Energy business, which encompasses projects for customers in the oil and gas industry, the petrochemical industry and renewable energies, increased sales revenues by more than 25%, or EUR
8.1 million, in 2011. All in all, this segment achieved EUR 40 million of sales and generated nearly EUR
0.7 million of EBIT during the year under review, compared with a loss of more than EUR -6.1 million the previous year.
In the Other Services sector, scaffolding and steel construction work generated very positive sales revenues of EUR 34.4 million in 2011 (2010: EUR 21.5 million). The 60% growth rate here was the highest increase reported by any business division. With income of EUR 4.9 million around 11% higher than in 2010, the earnings trend was also positive.
As we had predicted and announced in the interim report for the third quarter of 2011, at the end of the year, the company was no longer able to satisfy all of the covenants for the EUR 20 million bond and the working capital financing. In the meantime, the company has reached an agreement with its financing partners on new terms for continued financing. The agreement guarantees future cooperation by establishing bond covenants that take into account the requirements of the project business and which, as in the past, will not negatively affect the company's ability to conduct business as it sees fit. In return, the company had to accept a 75 basis point increase in the bond coupon to 8.77%.
For additional information on fiscal year 2011 and the outlook for 2012, please consult the 2011 Annual
Report published today.
The Company's most important financial highlights are contained in the following table:

Worldwide, the Muehlhan Group is a reliable partner in industrial services and high-quality surface protection.

As one of the few full-service providers, we offer our customers a broad range of services designed to meet the exacting quality standards expected in professional industrial services. Our customers benefit from our exceptional organizational skills, the technical expertise that differentiates us from our competitors and our more than 130 years of experience.

Our operations are divided into five business fields: Ship Newbuilding, Ship Repair, Energy, Industry and Other Services. With our workforce of

2,100 employees at around 40 locations worldwide, we generated sales revenues of EUR 172 million in 2011.

We intend to use this stable foundation to further expand our business in the coming years and to continue moving our company forward through proximity to our customers in the global market.

More information at www.muehlhan.com

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This press release was issued by Muehlhan AG and was initially posted at http://www.muehlhan.com/upload/dokumente/MYAG_PM_GB_2011_EN.pdf . It was distributed, unedited and unaltered, by noodls on 2012-03-30 12:54:51 PM. The issuer is solely responsible for the accuracy of the information contained therein.