Pfeiffer Vacuum share +12%: Pfeiffer Vacuum is targeting further increases in 2022

Sales are likely to grow by more than five percent in 2022, the company announced on Tuesday in Alar, Hesse. Operating profit is expected to increase disproportionately. However, the Management Board does not yet dare to assess the possible consequences of the Ukraine war for the global economy and for Pfeiffer. So far, he sees the greatest risk in the persistently tense supply chain. On the stock exchange, the news was acknowledged with a jump in price.

On Tuesday, the Pfeiffer share temporarily rose by 12.16 percent to EUR 191.80, making it the leader in the SDAX small-cap index. The paper thus made up for part of the price losses from the year to date. However, Pfeiffer is still trading around twelve percent cheaper than at the turn of the year.

However, industry experts did not want to overstate the company’s annual forecast. Analyst Martin Comtesse from the investment house Jefferies even spoke of “subdued targets” given the ongoing boom in the chip industry, which is an important customer for Pfeiffer. Adrian Pehl from Oddo BHF saw hardly any significant news in the statements about the past and the new year.

In the second Corona year 2021, Pfeiffer Vacuum increased sales by almost a quarter compared to 2020 to a good 771 million euros. Operating earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) fell to a good 93 million euros, more than twice as high as in the previous year. The bottom line is that Pfeiffer earned 62 million euros – which is also almost double that. As already known, the dividend is to increase from EUR 1.60 to EUR 4.08 per share. The group is thus distributing almost two thirds of the annual profit to its shareholders.

For the current year, Pfeiffer’s management, led by CEO Britta Giesen, is actually targeting sales of more than 810 million euros. About 14 percent of this should remain as operating profit for the group, after this margin had only reached 12.1 percent last year due to depreciation. In the medium to long term, the board of directors wants to increase sales to one billion euros and further improve the operating margin.

/stw/lew/mis

ASSLAR (dpa-AFX)

Image sources: Pfeiffer Vacuum