Riding the storm

 The Trumpf Group has reported that it closed out the past fiscal year with a profit despite the current operating conditions. During the 2008/2009 fiscal year, the company posted an income before taxes of €52.2 million – although sales declined by 22% to €1.66 billion. "This double digit profit demonstrates the performance capacity of our company and that we implemented the right measures in a timely fashion,” remarked Trumpf president, Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller.

Nevertheless, the global financial crisis caused sales declines in almost all of Trumpf's business fields and in the current fiscal year, the company is continuing to operate with caution. "The situation in the global manufacturing industry remains tense, and although we have identified an economic upswing in some individual markets and there are signs that order declines may be slowing, we still do not see the situation improving greatly," said Ms Leibinger-Kammüller.

A decisive factor for this fiscal year will be liquidity. "We began building up sufficient financial reserves early on to guarantee the company's liquidity," Ms Leibinger-Kammüller pointed out. “In addition, the equity ratio in the last fiscal year rose from 49% to 53% and the managing partners increased liable equity capital by €75 million.

Trumpf confronted the tough economic conditions early on. First and foremost, the company initiated a comprehensive innovation campaign in all business fields and reduced its costs worldwide – adjusting work capacities in production and administration to the drop in demand, mainly by depleting overtime hours in flexitime accounts and introducing short time work. This allowed the number of employees to remain almost constant both at home and abroad and at the end of the fiscal year, the Group had a workforce of 7,955 employees.

The new fiscal year has been deemed a transition year. "We are positioning Trumpf as best we can for the period after the crisis," Ms Leibinger-Kammüller explained. “The company intends to continue investing – budgeting €80 million for new machines, and we expect expenditure for research and development to also remain high. Last year, Trumpf allocated 9.3% of its sales – €155 million – to R&D and in the coming weeks, Trumpf will introduce new production innovation at various trade shows.”

www.trumpf.com