Austrian steelmaker Voestalpine has said in a press release that its operational results for the business year 2019-20 ended March 31 will be affected negatively by the coronavirus pandemic and its global impact, as a result of one-time effects.
The coronavirus outbreak is expected to negatively affect the company’s EBITDA and EBIT for the past business year 2019-20 by around €40 million. The company anticipates that its EBITDA for the business year 2019-20 will total over €1.1 billion.
Voestalpine AG also will now make non-recurring write-offs to the sum of €125 million in various sectors for the 2019-20 business year.
Company CEO Herbert Eibensteiner said, “We must further reduce our expectations for the business year 2020-21 and for the value of individual companies, and again implement non-recurring write-offs.” He also said that this situation does not lead to any change in the company’s long-term strategic orientation, adding that it will continue to focus on technology-intensive sectors with the most stringent quality standards.
At the end of March, the company announced that almost 18,000 of its total of 22,300 employees in Austria and around 6,000 of its 8,300 employees in Germany were already registered for short-time work. In Belgium and the Netherlands, similar models are being considered and implemented currently.