Heinzel Group was again able to achieve growth in 2015 with a rise in sales revenues of 5.3% to EUR 1,480.4 million. This purely organic increase is all the more notable in view of the fact that owing to damage the plants in Pöls and Laakirchen demonstrated lower production output. While as a consequence sales in the Industrial Business Area were 6.6% down on the level of the preceding year at EUR 485.8 million, trading gained 11.4% to stand at EUR 1,109.2 million. Apart from geographical business expansion, the basis for this increase in trading sales revenues was furnished by the enlargement of the product range. Of the total of 3,324,768 tonnes of pulp and paper sold (+ 2.4%), 28% were produced in the group’s own plants. The remainder was marketed for third party suppliers.
The operative result (EBIT) of EUR 94.2 million surpassed that of the previous year by 39.8%. A significant factor in this considerable rise was the positive cost effect derived from the favourable price trend for both raw materials and energy.
Apart from the locations in Laakirchen and Pöls, which for their part both stood out owing to the successful and extremely rapid solution of their damage-related problems, sales revenues were raised in nearly all of Heinzel Group’s subsidiaries. Sales at Estonian Cell, which in 2015 had record exports of around 174,000 tonnes, were up by 12.5% at EUR 68.7 million, while Wilfried Heinzel AG supplied eleven new markets and was able to increase its sales by 13.8% to EUR 516.5 million. Europapier achieved gains in all its product segments and improved its sales by 5.8% to EUR 512.1 million, and Bunzl & Biach once again closed a financial year in highly successful fashion with a record sales volume of 674,544 tonnes and sales of EUR 92.4 million, which represented growth of 6.2%.
Owing to the outage of the PM10, which lasted for several weeks, and a fall in sales prices Laakirchen Papier sales fell by 13.8% to EUR 234.1 million. Zellstoff Pöls AG sales were also 2.9% down on the previous year at EUR 184.2 million, but following the completion of repairs in record time, the company was already able to put its liquor recovery boiler back into operation in December 2015 and can therefore look to the future with optimism.
With the acquisition of Raubling Papier GmbH (formerly Mondi Raubling GmbH) and Chiemgau Recycling GmbH, which was concluded at the end of the year, Heinzel Group expanded its product portfolio to include the growing containerboard segment. Alfred H. Heinzel: “In view of the strong expansion in the packaging paper segment, this purchase represented a highly significant strategic step for Heinzel Group.” Accordingly, initial investments in the new location were agreed only a few days after the integration of the companies into Heinzel Group.
As a result of the integration of the Raubling location, Heinzel Group sales will increase by some EUR 100 million and paper production capacity by 200,000 tonnes annually. Moreover, in order to further consolidate the group’s global role, additional takeovers are not excluded and investments totalling EUR 150 million are planned at the three production locations in Pöls, Laakirchen and Kunda.
