EQS-Adhoc: Kardex AG: Another successful year for Kardex

Media information - Year End Results 2018

Zurich, 4 March 2019

Another successful year for Kardex

- Bookings and order backlog reach new record levels

- Kardex Group increases revenue by 12.6% and EBIT by 15.7%

- Kardex Remstar grows at double-digit rates

- Kardex Mlog reaches new profitability level

- Distribution to shareholders increases from CHF 3.60 to CHF 4.00

The Kardex Group continued its dynamic development in 2018. A largely positive economic environment and the Group's strong market position ensured a continued good level of bookings and full order books in both divisions. Despite some bottlenecks in the supply chain, which led to higher costs and extended project durations, revenue and profit development accelerated. Kardex Remstar made targeted investments to increase capacity. Kardex Mlog reached a new level of profitability.

At EUR 481.2 million, the Kardex Group's bookings were up 16.8% on the previous year and Group revenues increased to EUR 423.4 million, 12.6% more than in 2017. At 15.9%, the growth rate of the service business again exceeded the equally strong growth rate of new business of 11.0%. The Group's order backlog at yearend amounted to EUR 230.1 million, a new high. This is 32.5% more than the comparable figure at the end of the previous year. The number of employees in the group increased by 9.3% to 1 807 full-time equivalents during the year.

Further increase in EBIT margin
Gross profit at Group level rose by 12.2% to EUR 152.2 million, but remained almost unchanged in percentage terms at 35.9% (36.1%) due to higher procurement prices and wages as well as slightly lower sales margins. Operating costs increased only moderately, even though marketing and development expenses remained high, resulting in an operating income of EUR 53.2 million. In absolute and percentage terms, this corresponds to a new record with a plus of 15.7% and an EBIT margin of 12.6% (12.2%). As expected, the tax rate fell slightly to 25.6% (28.5%), while net profit increased by 20.4% to EUR 38.3 million. This result corresponds to a ROCE of 52.1% (46.9%).

Kardex Remstar continues dynamic growth
Demand increased in almost all of Kardex Remstar's target markets. New business was particularly dynamic in North America, China and the major European countries. Bookings increased in total by 13.2% to EUR 381.3 million. Due to the high order backlog, revenues rose by 14.8% to EUR 347.5 million. The service segment contributed EUR 100.0 million, which leads to a revenue share of 28.8%. Despite significantly higher material costs and increased personnel costs, the operating income rose by 14.9% to EUR 51.0 million due to the revenue increase and further efficiency gains in line with the revenue development. The EBIT margin remained at the previous year level of 14.7%. Kardex Remstar recorded a very high capacity utilization, resulting in longer project durations, which were in addition also driven by bottlenecks at suppliers. Capacities will therefore gradually be increased through targeted investments in the plants, thus ensuring that profitable growth can continue seamlessly in 2019 and beyond. In order to take account of Kardex Remstar's sustained positive performance, the targeted EBIT margin corridor will be increased to 8-16% (7-15%) over the business cycle.

Kardex Mlog increases operating income by more than 30%
In a positive environment with high investment activities in Central Europe, Kardex Mlog achieved three-figure bookings (EUR 100.0 million) for the first time, an increase of 33.2% compared to the previous year. Due to capacity bottlenecks at suppliers and construction delays on customer sites, the project duration in some cases extended to up to 18 months. As a result, reported revenues only rose by 3.1% to EUR 75.9 million. As efficiency gains were achieved at the same time and the share of the service business significantly increased to almost half of revenues (49.5%), the gross profit margin was substantially higher at 22.5%. This gratifying development led to a significant increase in operating income to EUR 5.1 million, 30.8% more than in the previous year. The EBIT margin increased from 5.3% to 6.7%. The record order backlog of EUR 73.2 million forms a solid basis for the planned profitable growth in the current fiscal year 2019. Based on this, the targeted EBIT margin corridor will be increased to 4-8% (4-6%) over the business cycle.

Balance sheet remains strong and free cash flow high
The Kardex Group's balance sheet remains solid and the balance sheet total at the end of the period was EUR 264.9 million (31.12.2017: EUR 240.2 million). The company is debt-free, has a net cash position of EUR 129.2 million and an equity ratio of 57.9% (57.9%). The free cash flow of EUR 37.8 million (EUR 34.6 million) was higher than in the previous year despite increased investments and a slightly higher level of receivables. It thereby approximately corresponded to the net profit generated by the Group.

Strengthened Leadership
Urs Siegenthaler took over from Jens Fankhänel as Head of Division Kardex Remstar with effect from 1 January 2019 and has since complemented the Kardex Group Management Board. This will allow Jens Fankhänel to focus more on strategic tasks as Group CEO. Urs Siegenthaler joined Kardex Remstar in the middle of 2011. He initially managed the Life Cycle Services function and is in charge of the New Business function since 2016. He is a key driver of the success of both functions.

Further increase in payout
The good annual result allows the Board of Directors to propose a distribution of CHF 4.00 per share to the Annual General Meeting. Since the current par value of the Kardex share is only
CHF 0.45 and the capital reserves have also been exhausted, the payout will be made, for the first time since 2003, in the form of a dividend that is taxable also for Swiss private investors.

Outlook
The Board of Directors and the Group Management are confident about Kardex's future development. There are currently no signs of any change in the current market environment and the positive trends. The divisions have full order books and will continue to benefit from their strong position in the growing intralogistics market. The Kardex Group will continue to invest into people development, in its product and solution portfolio and in the digitization of its processes and services. In addition, the strong balance sheet allows to examine arising opportunities for the targeted strengthening of the Group.

Key Figures
EUR millions 

¹ 2018: planned.

Annual Report
A PDF version of the Annual Report 2018 of the Kardex Group is available on our website.

Contact for media and investors
Edwin van der Geest; investor-relations@kardex.com
Tel. +41 (0)44 419 44 79 / Mobile +41 (0)79 330 55 22

Kardex Group - Corporate Profile
The Kardex Group is a global industry partner for intra-logistic solutions and a leading supplier of automated storage solutions and material handling systems. The Group consists of two entrepreneurially managed divisions, Kardex Remstar and Kardex Mlog. Kardex Remstar develops, produces and maintains dynamic storage and retrieval systems and Kardex Mlog offers integrated materials handling systems and automated high-bay warehouses. The two divisions are partners for their customers over the entire lifecycle of a product or solution. This begins with an assessment of customer requirements and continues via the planning, realization and implementation of customer-specific systems through to ensuring a high level of availability and low lifecycle costs by means of customer-oriented lifecycle management. Around 1 800 employees in over 30 countries work for the Kardex Group.

Disclaimer
This communication contains statements that constitute "forward-looking statements". In this communication, such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements relating to our financial condition, results of operations and business and certain of our strategic plans and objectives. Because these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, actual future results may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the statements. Many of these risks and uncertainties relate to factors which are beyond Kardex's ability to control or estimate precisely, such as future market conditions, currency fluctuations, the behavior of other market participants, the actions of governmental regulators and other risk factors detailed in Kardex's past and future filings and reports and in past and future filings, press releases, reports and other information posted on Kardex Group companies' websites. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only of the date of this communication. Kardex disclaims any intention or obligation to update and revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Privacy policy
You have registered with us for our ad hoc announcements and are therefore entered in Kardex AG's list of recipients and regularly receive price-sensitive or current information about our company. The protection of your personal data is very important to us and we implement this throughout the entire life cycle of personal data in compliance with the applicable data protection regulations. You can find further information about data protection on our website under Privacy Statement.
Recipients of our communications have the option at any time of revoking their registration for ad hoc communications for the future or requesting information from Kardex AG about their own personal data that has been processed or their deletion. Please send us an e-mail to investor-relations@kardex.com.