The Mayr-Melnhof Group started the business year 2015 with a good first quarter. High capacity utilization and productivity increases contributed significantly to the profit growth of the Group compared to the previous year’s period. Improved performance of the packaging plants had a major part in this, while
MM Karton was able to maintain the solid earnings level of the previous year.
However, a sustainable economic upturn cannot be inferred from this as the slight increase in incoming orders at the beginning of the year has now re-turned to the usual seasonal level due to a lack of further impulses. Neverthe-less, we keep our goal to grow further with high profitability also in 2015.
The Group's consolidated sales went up to EUR 533.9 million and thus were 1.9 % above the comparative figure of the previous year (1Q 2014: EUR 523.9 million). This rise is mainly the result of increased business volume in the packaging division.
Operating profit rose by 10.0 % or EUR 4.6 million to EUR 50.8 million. This growth is primarily attributable to the overall improved performance of the MM Packaging plants. Accordingly, the Group's operating margin reached 9.5 %, following 8.8 % in the first three months of the previous year.
