Heinzel Group increased its sales revenues by roughly 3% compared with the previous year to EUR 1,816.5 million in 2017. All companies of the two business areas, Trading and Industrial, recorded increases in both sales revenues and earnings, which were significant in some cases - with the exception of Laakirchen Papier. This is attributable to the three-month downtime of PM10 as part of its conversion to one of the most modern production facilities for containerboard in Europe, which cost EUR 110 million. Since its commissioning at the end of October, it has produced more than 1,000 metric tons of environmentally friendly packaging paper per day from recycled paper.
Due to the negative result of Laakirchen Papier (EUR -8.0 million), the operating result (EBIT) of Heinzel Group, at EUR 73.6 million, was lower than the prior-year figure (EUR 78.6 million), which had, however, included non-operating one-off effects of EUR 4.3 million. At EUR 55.0 million, net income also fell slightly short of the good prior-year level of EUR 57.6 million.
"We are fully satisfied with the results of the year 2017. Our main investment decision of the past years, entering into the production of containerboard, has proven to be absolutely right, also in terms of timing. In combination with our other investments, we have thus created an essential cornerstone for our clear growth course," said Kurt Maier, CEO of Heinzel Group.
