Austrian steelmaker voestalpine AG has announced its financial results for the first quarter ended June 30 of the fiscal year 2013-14.
Accordingly, voestalpine's net profit in the first quarter decreased to €139 million, falling 4.3 percent year on year. The revenues of the company decreased by 3.8 percent to €2.94 billion compared to the corresponding period of the previous financial year, due to weaker economy in comparison to the previous year and lower raw materials prices.
In the given quarter, the company's EBITDA was €366 million, slightly decreasing from €372 million in the same quarter of the previous financial year, which is equivalent to an EBITDA margin of 12.5 percent, up from 12.2 percent in the same period of the previous year.
According to voestalpine, "the development in recent months shows that the economic downward trend that had prevailed up to the early part of 2013 has been broken. From the current vantage point, the next few months could see a further stabilization of the global economic situation, provided that, this time, the recovery in the USA proves truly sustainable, China does not suffer any new economic reversals, and the current first faint signs of optimism now visible in Europe do not turn out to be an illusion. If this is indeed the case, it might be possible that, in the second half of 2013, those preconditions will be created that will make the first global economic recovery in years possible in 2014."
"We anticipate that the voestalpine Group will continue to enjoy stable performance overall until the end of 2013. Our expectation is that the Steel Division will see absolutely full capacity utilization, with prices trending upward and that the Special Steel Division will have almost full capacity utilization, with prices at a stable level." voestalpine CEO Wolfgang Eder said.
