Austrian steelmaker voestalpine AG has announced its financial results for the 2018-19 financial year ended March 31.
Accordingly, Voestalpine's net profit in the whole financial year amounted to €459 million, falling by 44.4 percent compared to the previous financial year. In the business year 2018-19, the revenues of the company amounted to almost €13.56 billion, up 5.1 percent year on year. In the given period, the company's EBITDA was €1.56 billion, decreasing by 19.9 percent year on year, while the EBITDA margin stood at 11.5 percent.
According to voestalpine, the biggest internal challenge is the work to fix operational issues at the Group’s plants in the US so that the ambitious volume targets can be met. What is key to macroeconomic developments, however, is the extent to which trade policies will continue to artificially affect the global flow of goods in the next 12 months; the extent to which the performance of the global raw materials industry will continue to be affected in the future, too, less by supply and demand and more by other criteria that are difficult to comprehend; and the extent to which the new emissions tests and the political debates about new visions for the future of automotive technology will affect consumers’ spending patterns in Europe and beyond. Last but not least, the direction the European economy will take in connection with the question whether the Brexit will follow an orderly or disorderly process will also determine outcomes. “Since the company cannot influence nor decide any of these external factors, any guidance issued for the business year 2019/20 above and beyond the general direction expressed above would not have any basis in fact,” says Herbert Eibensteiner, member of the Management Board of voestalpine and Head of the Steel Division.
