The Mayr-Melnhof Group was able to solidly maintain its position in the first quarter of 2016 despite a considerably restrained market environment. Both divisions succeeded in increasing their business volumes and thus registered an overall good capacity utilization of production sites. The acquisition of a folding carton group in France at the end of October last year contributed an expected growth compared to the previous year.
With a largely stable development on the procurement markets, high price discipline and cost efficiency enabled MM Karton and MM Packaging to keep the yield from the business at the good level of the previous year.
Due to a continuous lack of impulses from the overall economy, the situation on our markets is characterized by a further decrease in visibility and therefore high competition. The priority lies on safeguarding profitability as best as pos-sible as well as maintaining respectively extending our market shares.
The Group’s consolidated sales rose by 7.9%, or Euro 42.1 million to Euro 576 million (1Q 2015: Euro 533.9 million). This increase primarily results from higher business volumes in both divisions.
Analogously, a rise in operating profit of 8.7% or Euro 4.4 million to Euro 55.2 million(1Q 2015: Euro 50.8 million) was reached. It was therefore possible to maintain the Group’s operating margin with 9.6 % at the good level of the comparative period of the previous year.
Financial income of Euro 0.7 million (1Q 2015: Euro 0.4 million) was offset by financial expenses of Euro -1.6 million.
Profit before tax thus rose by 11.8% to Euro 53.2 million (1Q 2015: Euro 47.6 million). Income tax expense totaled Euro 13.8 million, resulting in an effective Group tax rate of 25.9%.
Profit for the period went up by 11% to Euro 39.4 million, compared to Euro 35.5 million in 1Q 2015. This corresponds to 6.8% of sales.
