During the period under review (April 1 to December 31, 2018), sales at Heidelberg increased by approximately 2 percent to €1,693 million (previous year: €1,657 million). Sales in the third quarter were lower than the previous year’s figures, largely due to deliveries being moved into the fourth quarter owing to supply bottlenecks at suppliers for certain product series, and due to the discontinuation of a funding program in Italy. At €101 million, EBITDA excluding the restructuring result did not quite reach the previous year’s figure of €105 million as a result of higher collectively agreed rates of pay. This also saw the EBITDA margin drop slightly to 6.0 percent. EBIT excluding the restructuring result totaled €49 million (previous year: €54 million). As anticipated, expenditure on restructuring measures aimed at improving efficiency rose from €1 million to €9 million. The non-recurring transaction and early redemption charges associated with the partial redemption of the current high-yield bond amounting to €55 million meant that the financial result rose from €–36 million to €–39 million after three quarters. As the same quarter of the previous year involved a non-recurring charge on income tax expenses of €25 million, the net result after taxes in the period under review improved significantly from €–10 million to €–2 million.
Operating cash flow was €50 million (previous year: €69 million). As in the preceding quarters, free cash flow was influenced by factors such as an increase in inventories (caused by the growing order backlog and longer-than-planned throughput times due to supply bottlenecks), the start-up of digital operations, and investments in the now-completed construction of the innovation center at the Wiesloch-Walldorf site. Accordingly, a value of €–120 million was recorded (previous year: €–20 million). At €361 million, shareholder’s equity was €16 million up on the equivalent period of the previous year and the equity ratio climbed accordingly from 15.3 to 16.0 percent. Due to the negative free cash flow, the net financial debt at the end of the quarter was €350 million (previous year: €244 million). Leverage, as measured on December 31, 2018, increased to 2.1, although this is set to drop back below the target value of 2 by the end of the financial year, in part due to the anticipated inflow of approximately €70 million from a capital increase that is still to take place when the new anchor shareholder joins.
“During the current financial year, we are stabilizing our consolidated balance sheet for the long term. Our balance sheet quality will be further improved, not just by the partial redemption of our high-yield bond, but more importantly by the capital measure associated with the entry of our anchor shareholder Masterwork, which is anticipated to take place in the final quarter,” said CFO Dirk Kaliebe.