17.12.2013

Flat year for Liebherr

Liebherr has issued a trading update and expects 2013 revenues to come in close to last year’s record at just under €9.1 billion.

The make-up of revenues will be slightly different from last year, with mining and construction related divisions falling around four percent, probably due mostly to slower sales of mining equipment? Total revenues for the grouping which includes mining, earthmoving, concrete technology, mobile cranes and tower cranes will be just over €5.6 billion.

The rest of the group, which includes aviation components and systems, refrigerators, machine tools and marine cranes, looks like being up eight percent on 2012 at around 3.5 billion.

Total capital investment, mostly spent on the company’s production and distribution facilities, will be down very slightly at €800 million.

The most significant investment is in the new logistics centre for Liebherr-Logistics near Kirchdorf an der Iller, Germany. It will initially supply spare parts for Liebherr earthmoving machinery, but in the long term it is planned to add spare part logistics for all construction related machinery divisions.

The first phase will cover an area of more than 47,000 square metres and will be operational in the first quarter of 2015. When the centre is completed the space under cover will be around 170,000 square metres plus and 4,500 square metres of office space, all on a 90 acre site. The number of employees increased by 1,870 in 2013, to a total of 39,670.

Liebherr says that it views the new business year with restrained optimism and expects total revenues to remain at similar levels to that achieved this year.