Adjusted Ebit for the group for the first nine months totalled €31.9m, down from €35.2m for the same period in 2018.
One-time charges over the period totalled €37.7m, related to staff cuts and the disposal of unprofitable or disadvantageous activities. The majority of the charges were due to the Customized Modules Division’s sale of Cleveland Track Material (CTM) in Cleveland, Ohio, and the shutdown of a company in South America.
Performance programme
On April 23, Vossloh launched a performance programme to achieve a sustainable increase in profitability and self-financing in its core rail infrastructure business. This included reducing the number of employees by 5% and disposing of loss-generating or underperforming activities, which is expected to result in negative one-time effects on earnings, totalling around €85m in 2019.
The disposal of subsidiaries focused on the Customized Modules Division in the United States, including the signing of a contract for the sale of CTM on October 22. Following this, the executive board also decided to dispose of all companies in the Customized Modules Division in the US and South America.
Core Components Division
Orders received by the Core Components Division increased 31.1% to €327.5m, driven by the positive performance of the sleeper technologies business unit largely due to significant orders in Australia. The order backlog as of September 30 also increased strongly in both business units to a total of €320.6m, up from €183.2m. Adjusted Ebit was €25.8m, up from €24.9m, while one-time effects from the performance programme added up to €0.9m.
Customized Modules Division
Orders received by the Customized Modules Division in the first nine months came to €370.4m, up from €366.7m. As of September 30, the order backlog amounted to €363.0m, up from €337.4m. These figures still include the order backlog of CTM, as the closure of the sale is still outstanding.
Lifecycle Solutions division
The €78.8m in orders received by the Lifecycle Solutions Division during the period was up slightly from €72.6m the previous year. The division’s order backlog as of September 30 totalled €14.9m, down from €25m. Sales revenues increased by 10.1% in the first three quarters of 2019 to €76.8m, compared with €69.7m in 2018. Ebit fell from €4.9m in the previous year to adjusted €3.7m, largely due to a lower Ebit contributions from vehicles sale.
Outlook
The executive board has confirmed its outlook for the 2019 fiscal year, and expects sales of between €900m and €1bn. Ebit will probably be in the lower third of the forecast range of between €50m and €60m, in particular due to the weak business development of CTM. As a result of the streamlined portfolio, Vossloh also expects group sales of between €900m and €1bn, but a significantly improved Ebit between €65m and €80m in 2020.
