BWT Group Announces Its Final Results for the 2013 Financial Year

“In 2013, with our advertising strategy ‘BWT does that for me!’ involving thousands of our installation partners, we launched the biggest ever advertising campaign in the German and Austrian water treatment market, significantly raising the profile of our BWT brand among endconsumers”, says CEO Andreas Weißenbacher, speaking about the ongoing marketing initiative.

In the 2013 financial year, the €500 million revenues threshold was surpassed again. At €507.7 million, revenues were up by €5.4 million (+1.1%). The intense efforts to further expand the strategically important Point of Use business were again successful in 2013. At €49.1 million, the previous year’s revenues were exceeded by 17.4%, increasing the percentage of total revenues to 9.7% (previous year: 8.3%).

Ongoing and substantial expenditure associated with the development of the BWT brand, a high level of capital expenditure at the Austrian and German sites and costs related to the streamlining of the product portfolio had a dampening effect on the income situation. Even so, consolidated EBIT increased slightly to €23.1 million (+4.1%). The Group’s consolidated net earnings before minority interests suffered from a financial result affected by additional costs as a result of company disposals as well as a higher tax result and thus amounted to €10.8 million (-25.1%). Earnings per share declined to €0.64 (previous year: €0.87).

In spite of the substantial capital expenditure of €34.7 million, the balance sheet position remains solid. Gearing increased only slightly to 16.2% (2012: 13.7%) and the equity ratio was 47.9%.

The Management Board will submit a proposal to the next Annual General Meeting to keep the dividend payment unchanged at €0.28 per share.

Outlook

The investment programme at the Mondsee site will be completed in the first half of 2014 with the new production and logistics facilities. The new Fumatech membrane production plant will go into operation in Germany in the course of 2014.

The efforts to expand the BWT brand will be stepped up even further in 2014. The increased advertising expenditure associated with this means that little to no increase in earnings is expected.