The company announced this late Friday. Above all, the longer-than-expected inventory reduction at biopharmaceutical customers following the coronavirus pandemic and relatively low investment activity on the part of customers due to free production capacities are likely to dampen business development at Sartorius for the year as a whole.
Accordingly, the company management is now assuming a decline in sales in the group in the low to mid teens percentage range for the full year 2023; excluding the corona business, sales would decrease in the mid to high single-digit percentage range (previously: sales growth in the low single-digit percentage range; excluding the corona business, upper single-digit percentage range). Acquisitions are expected to contribute around 1 percentage point to sales development, although the planned Polyplus takeover has not yet been included in the forecast.
Due to the lower volume expectations, Sartorius is also anticipating an operating EBITDA margin of around 30 percent, after previously expecting a margin around the level of the previous year (previous year 33.8 percent).
The investment ratio based on sales should now be around 15 percent in 2023 (previously around 12.5 percent) and the dynamic gearing should be around 2.2 (previously around 1.5). Possible acquisitions, including that of Polyplus, are not taken into account.
Sartorius sees the current demand situation after the pandemic as a phase that will only temporarily overshadow the fundamental, very positive growth drivers in the life science and biopharmaceutical markets. Accordingly, the company is not changing its medium-term goals until 2025.
Sartorius will publish its half-year figures for 2023 on July 21, 2023 as planned.
DJG/raz
GOETTINGEN (Dow Jones)
Leverage must be between 2 and 20
No data
More news about Sartorius AG St.
Image sources: T. Schneider / Shutterstock.com