Koenig & Bauer Reports Strong Q4 2024

On the basis of its preliminary and as yet unaudited figures, Koenig & Bauer AG closed the 2024 financial year with a historically strong final quarter as planned in a challenging global economic market environment, thus reaching all the targets defined in November 2024 required to meet the updated full-year forecast.

Operating EBIT of €46.5 million (previous year: €32 million) and a strong positive free cash flow were achieved in the fourth quarter. This resulted in a positive free cash flow for the year as a whole, although it remained negative at €-35.8 million in the first nine months.

As forecasted, operating EBIT of €25.8m adjusted for extraordinary items for the “Spotlight” focus program and costs for the drupa trade fair was achieved for 2024 with a revenue of €1,274.4 million.

After drupa, the Sheetfed segment did not see any decline in demand, posting an order intake of €220.8 million (+45.5% YOY) in the final quarter, which was also the strongest quarter of the year. This also resulted in a high Group order intake of €1,402.7 million (+8.9% YOY) in 2024 and and increased the Group order backlog to €1,039.8 million (+14.1% YOY) with a book-to-bill ratio of 1.10. This marks the highest year-end figure in Koenig & Bauer’s recent history and provides a strong basis for 2025 and beyond.

“The achievement of our targets testifies to our company’s performance and flexibility and highlights our operational resilience as well as the success of our ‘Spotlight, measures,” CEO Dr. Andreas Pleßke said. “We used drupa to demonstrate our innovative strength and to intensify relations with our customers. However, spending restraint, geopolitical tensions and trade conflicts continue to pose challenges. The fact that we are operating in the less volatile packaging markets is paying off. Packaging of all kinds is always needed, especially in the food, pharmaceutical, beverage and consumer goods markets.”

In addition to the costs of €10.5 million for the world’s leading trade fair drupa, extraordinary items for the “Spotlight” focus program amounting to €50.4 million placed a burden on group EBIT in 2024, while simultaneously laying the foundations for profitable growth in the coming years.

In the course of the ongoing implementation of the “Spotlight” program, Koenig & Bauer MetalPrint GmbH identified additional need for action and further potential. In the “Metal 2.0” project, the Management Board decided to discontinue the CS-MetalCan project for 2-piece beverage can printing in addition to the personnel and material costs adjustments already agreed.

Launched in 2012 and announced in 2017, the project failed to reach the defined goals and the anticipated market potential as of the end of 2024. This caused the above-mentioned difference of approximately €5.4 million.

Looking forward, MetalPrint will focus on the growth field of digital printing in addition to maintaining its market-leading position in offset printing presses and coating lines for the metal printing market.

“Our priority is to operate profitably in every area. We do not build machines for the sake of building machines – what doesn’t achieve the desired success, we consistently discontinue,” Dr Stephen Kimmich, CFO and deputy CEO added.

Koenig & Bauer continues to project group revenue of roughly €1.5bn in 2026, accompanied by an operating EBIT margin of around 6%. Due to the global economic and geopolitical uncertainties and, resulting from this, the limited forward planning visibility, Group revenue is currently expected to come to between €1.4 bilion and €1.5 billion, with the operating EBIT margin reaching 5-6%.