Order intake amounts to €2.1 billion and the order backlog – adjusted for Kiepe Electric – remains at a high level of €6.8 billion
▪ Sales revenue amounts to around €2.01 billion
▪ The operating EBIT raises by 13% to approximately €252 million. The operating EBIT margin is around 12.5% (Q2/23: 11.1%)
▪ Free cash flow quadruples compared to prior-year quarter and amounts to around €158 million (Q2/23: €34 million) ▪ Earnings per share increase to €0.90
▪ Full-year guidance for 2024 raised
The preliminary key financial figures for Q2/24 partly exceed analysts’ expectations and confirm an overall positive business performance in the second quarter.
Marc Llistosella, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Knorr-Bremse AG: “Thanks to a strong team effort, we have achieved an excellent interim result for the first half of the year. Our ‘BOOST 2026’ strategy program has already had a positive impact on our sales revenues and has reduced costs. Our fix-it-or-sell-it program, in which we are putting units with a total sales revenue volume of €1.4 billion to the test, is making an important contribution here. At the same time, we are expanding our business activities as demonstrated by the attractive acquisition of Alstom Signaling in the USA.”
Frank Weber, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Knorr-Bremse AG: “According to preliminary results, we performed better than expected in the second quarter of 2024 across most of our key financial figures. We are particularly pleased with the fact that our cost and efficiency measures have already achieved around 50% of the profitability improvement targets defined by the ‘BOOST 2026’ strategy. A comparison over the last three years shows the steady increase in the operating EBIT margin from 10.5% in Q2/22 to 11.1% in Q2/23 and to currently 12.5% in Q2/24. We are therefore raising our guidance for the operating EBIT margin.”
Earnings per share significantly improved on the previous year’s quarter due to the strong operating result and the BOOST 2026 efficiency program’s success to €0.90. This applies despite the following one-off effects, which burdened earnings in Q2/24 by around €0.13 per share:
• Significantly more positive development of Cojali since acquisition, in which the Cojali minority shareholders also participate accordingly.
• Impairment of a business unit in the CVS division in the context of the intended sale of this unit.
