FRANKFURT (Dow Jones) — The armaments group Rheinmetall earned a third more from operations last year and thus exceeded its own margin target and market expectations. Rheinmetall AG announced that the improved profitability was essentially due to strict cost management and an advantageous product mix. Sales growth, on the other hand, fell short of the Group forecast. The main reason for this is the limited availability of raw materials and semiconductor components as well as shifts in time in the international project business from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022.
Based on preliminary figures, like-for-like sales increased by 4.7 percent to EUR 5.658 billion. The group had forecast growth of around 6 percent.
However, the operating result increased significantly to 595 million euros from 446 million euros in the same period of the previous year. That’s more than analysts were expecting at €570 million in a consensus compiled by Vara-Research. The operating profit margin is expected to reach 10.5 percent and exceeded Rheinmetall AG’s operating margin target of around 10 percent. The good earnings development in the fourth quarter, which showed an operating margin of 16.4 (previous year: 13.7) percent, contributed to this. For the final quarter, the analysts had expected an improvement in the margin to just 14.5 percent.
According to the information, the operating free cash flow in the 2021 financial year also significantly exceeded expectations and was above the target corridor of 3 to 5 percent of sales.
Rheinmetall will publish the final business figures and the outlook for the 2022 fiscal year on March 17.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 11, 2022 06:55 ET (11:55 GMT)
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