DGAP-News: SURTECO SE

SURTECO aspires to increased growth with realignment

- Focus on customer needs through industry orientation

- Important element of growth strategy SURTECO 2025+

- Goal: Higher organic growth and earnings synergies

Buttenwiesen, 7 December 2017 - SURTECO SE, a globally leading manufacturer of surfaces for the furniture and wood-based materials industry and producer of technical extrusions, is adapting its organisational structures for its planned future growth. As part of the SURTECO 2025+ growth strategy launched in the 2015 financial year, there is to be a consistent focus on customer needs. To this end, as part of the realignment from the current product orientation to industry orientation, the previously separately managed companies BauschLinnemann, Döllken-Kunststoffverarbeitung and SURTECO DECOR will be merged to form a new entity with the name SURTECO GmbH.

The underlying concept of offering all services together as a one-stop shop gives customers global access to cross-segment expertise and allows them to benefit from improved services such as simplified ordering options and shorter development times. SURTECO has already been achieving success with this strategy for a long time at several foreign subsidiaries.

"With the merger of three companies to form SURTECO GmbH, SURTECO is being repositioned for the future in organisational terms. Our customers increasingly ask for cross-segment paper and plastic services from a single source. We expect this step to bring us additional organic growth and earnings synergies," says Dr Herbert Müller, Chairman of the Board of Management of SURTECO SE.

Focus on organic growth

This repositioning is aimed primarily at stronger organic growth of the Group. In total, the subsidiaries to be merged as SURTECO GmbH have around 2,000 employees (roughly 60 % of the Group's workforce) and generate annual sales of approximately EUR 500 million (roughly 78 % of consolidated sales in 2016).

Sales and earnings growth anticipated in 2017 financial year

At the same time as announcing its nine-month figures in mid-November, SURTECO also confirmed its forecast for the 2017 financial year. In light of the positive development in the first three quarters, the SURTECO management expects consolidated sales to increase substantially as against the previous year (EUR 639.8 million). Despite significant increases in raw material prices, the SURTECO Group's earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) should be within a range of EUR 42 to EUR 46 million (2016: EUR 40.9 million).

Further information on SURTECO SE can be found online at
www.ir.surteco.com.

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Profile of SURTECO
SURTECO SE, Buttenwiesen-Pfaffenhofen, is a leading international specialist for surface technologies. The product portfolio includes papers printed with decorative designs, impregnated products, release papers, decorative flat foils and edgebandings based on specialist papers for technical applications and plastics. The extensive product portfolio is completed by skirtings made of plastic, technical extrusions for industry and do-it-yourself ranges and shutter systems.
The Group currently has a workforce of appr. 3,300 and manufactures at 25 sites on four continents, currently generating approximately 27 % of sales in Germany, 45 % in European countries outside Germany and the remainder in America, Asia and Australia. Customers of SURTECO generally come from the wood based materials, flooring and furnishing industry and the interior industry.
The shares of SURTECO SE are listed on the official market (Prime Standard) of the Frankfurt and Munich Stock Exchanges under the ticker symbol SUR and ISIN DE0005176903. They are also traded on the stock markets in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart Hamburg and Hannover.

Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements

This press release contains statements of future forecasts or expectations and other forward-looking statements and involves known and unknown risks and uncertainties. There is therefore no guarantee for the statements and expectations expressed herein. The actual results and developments may differ substantially. The company does not intend to - and assumes no obligation - to update any forward looking statements contained herein or to adapt such information to future results or developments.