Heidelberg achieved all its aims at the company’s AGM last week, winning almost every vote with effective unanimous support albeit from the 27.5% of shareholders attending the online meeting. Dr Martin Sonnenschein has been retained as chairman of the supervisory board.
The focus of the event was the report by CEO Jurgen Otto, a year after taking up on the reins, on his first year as head of the business. He found a series of successes to highlight, starting with the creation of a sound financial base to build on. “Heidelberg is emerging from a successful restructuring in the early 2020s, is now more solidly financed, and has increased its financial stability. We achieved significantly positive free cashflow for the third year in a row.”
The cost cutting has not finished and a deal with employees will reduce the head count by 400 staff, landing the business with a €25 million charge in Q3. With continuing action on personnel costs, the company will be €80 million better off from the 2027/28 financial year. The savings will be ongoing over subsequent years.
The strategy is not dependent on managing costs. Otto explained that four growth areas have been identified: digital print, growth in services, new industries (including a shortly to be announced manufacturing partnership) and mergers and acquisitions. “The shared mission at Heidelberg is clear: we want to achieve profitable and significant growth by 2029. Our strategy promises profitable sales potential of more than €300m by 2029 and addresses the most important megatrends in our target markets.”
He had one of these acquisitions to talk about as the deal to take on service, IP and assets of Polar Mohr to tell shareholder about. “The transaction with the Polar Group is an example of this. We signed the agreement for the exclusive acquisition of the technology, intellectual property, and trademark rights, as well as other assets, this week. The sole right to worldwide distribution, service, and marketing of Polar Mohr’s products in the postpress sector strengthens our market position in the packaging sector.”
Packaging is one of the key megatrends, driven by rising populations, increased life expectancy, prosperity, sustainability and other shifts in consumer demands. He added: “In the packaging market, we are therefore focusing on expanding our activities along the entire value chain. In the future, we want to not only produce, supply, and maintain individual printing presses or postpress systems, but increasingly act as a system integrator for packaging solutions. This also includes software, robotics, and logistics.”
The deal to market the Roland 900 as the Cartonmaster CX145 is an example of this, likewise collaboration with Solenis to develop machine applicable barrier coatings for fibre based packaging.
There is also potential in digital printing where its collaboration with Canon opens strong growth potential in a merit expected to grow at 8% until 2029.
That is also the Ebitda margin that Heidelberg is targeting for the current financial year on a revenue of €2.35 billion. “This would be the highest profitability level since 2008,” Otto explained. With the steady strengthening of the once beleagured share price, this was enough to send happy shareholders back to their offices.
