Metso Corporation's Interim Review January 1 - March 31, 2012
Metso Corporation's stock exchange release on April 26, 2012 at 12:00 p.m. local time
Strong order intake gives a positive start for the year
Metso will hold a news conference for media, investors and analysts in Helsinki
on Thursday, April 26, 2012 at 03:00 pm Finnish time The event will take place
at Metso Group Head Office, Fabianinkatu 9 A, Helsinki, Finland. The news
conference can also be followed through a live webcast at
www.metso.com/irwebcasts or through a simultaneously arranged conference call.
The news conference will be in English (details at the end of this release).
This is a summary of Metso's Q1/2012 Interim Review and the complete report is
attached as a pdf-file to this release and is also available on our website at
www.metso.com/investors.
Figures in brackets, unless otherwise stated, refer to the comparison period,
i.e. the same period in the previous year.
Highlights of the first quarter of 2012
* Solid development in all our strategic priority areas; services, emerging
markets and mining.
* New orders worth EUR 1,920 million were received in January-March, i.e. 4
percent more than in the comparison period (EUR 1,847 million). Orders
received by the services business increased 4 percent and were EUR 881
million, i.e. 48 percent of all orders received (EUR 848 million and 48%).
* Net sales increased 22 percent on the comparison period and were EUR 1,755
million (EUR 1,444 million). Our services business net sales were up 13
percent, totaling EUR 721 million and accounting for 43 percent of total net
sales (EUR 640 million and 46%).
* Earnings before interest, tax and amortization (EBITA), before non-recurring
items, increased 14 percent and were EUR 140.4 million, i.e. 8.0 percent of
net sales (EUR 123.6 million and 8.6%).
* Earnings per share were EUR 0.56 (EUR 0.49).
* Free cash flow was EUR 116 million (EUR 68 million).
Metso's President and CEO Matti Kähkönen comments on the first quarter:
"We continued to see good demand in most of our customer industries during the
first quarter, which translated into a strong order intake of EUR 1.9 billion.
All of our strategic priority areas -services, emerging markets and mining -
recorded strong development. Organic growth in net sales continued to be strong,
at more than 20 percent compared to the first quarter of 2011. Our EBITA before
non-recurring items rose to EUR 140 million. This was despite temporarily lower
profitability in the Automation segment in January and February. Going forward,
the market for paper and board machines is expected to remain weak due to low
demand in China, whereas our other businesses expect better demand broadly in
line with the first quarter. Our strong order backlog puts us in a good position
to meet our guidance for 2012."
Metso's key figures
EUR million Q1/2012 Q1/2011 Change % 2011
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Net sales 1,755 1,444 22 6,646
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Net sales of services business 721 640 13 2,871
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% of net sales (*)) 43 46 45
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Earnings before interest, tax and amortization
(EBITA) and non-recurring items 140.4 123.6 14 628.5
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% of net sales 8.0 8.6 9.5
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Operating profit 128.2 112.9 14 571.8
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% of net sales 7.3 7.8 8.6
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Earnings per share, EUR 0.56 0.49 14 2.38
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Orders received 1,920 1,847 4 7,961
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Orders received of services business 881 848 4 3,100
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% of orders received (*)) 48 48 40
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Order backlog at end of period 5,407 4,300 26 5,310
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Free cash flow 116 68 71 375
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Return on capital employed (ROCE) before taxes,
annualized, % 17.8 15.2 18.4
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Equity to assets ratio at end of period, % 36.3 35.0 39.8
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Gearing at end of period, % 7.6 13.8 12.2
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(*) )Calculated out of external net sales / orders received excluding Valmet
Automotive, which does not have a services business.
Short-term outlook
Market development
Demand has been healthy in most of our customer industries in recent months,
with some variation between different customer industries and geographic areas.
We estimate that the operating environment in emerging markets will continue to
be good in most of our customer industries. We anticipate that most of our
customer industries will continue to utilize their capacity at a good or
satisfactory level, thereby supporting our services business.
We expect underlying demand in the mining market to remain good. Due to expected
high utilization rates at mines and our large installed equipment base, we
expect demand for our mining services to remain excellent.
Demand for construction equipment is projected to remain good in the Asia-
Pacific region and Brazil. We anticipate that demand for equipment used in
aggregates processing by the construction industry in Europe and in North
America will stay at the current relatively low level going forward. We estimate
that demand for our construction industry services will remain satisfactory.
We estimate that demand for our automation products will continue to be good,
although activity in the pulp and paper industry is anticipated to slow
somewhat. We expect demand for our automation solution services to remain good.
We expect the market for pulp mills to remain satisfactory, with demand for
rebuilds and services remaining good.
Demand for papermaking lines is expected to be weak. Capacity utilization rates
in the paper and board industry are expected to remain sufficient to keep demand
for our services at a good level.
Demand for power plants that use renewable energy sources is expected to remain
satisfactory, while demand for power plant services is anticipated to be good.
Financial development
In line with our earlier statement and assuming that current demand in our
customer industries does not clearly weaken due to the European economic
situation or other similar factors, we estimate that our net sales for 2012 will
grow compared to 2011 and that our profit (EBITA before non-recurring items)
will improve.
The estimates for our financial performance in 2012 are based on Metso's current
market outlook, strong order backlog for 2012 and business scope, as well as on
foreign exchange rates remaining similar to those in March 2012.
Helsinki, April 26, 2012
Metso Corporation's Board of Directors
Metso is a global supplier of technology and services to customers in the
process industries, including mining, construction, pulp and paper, power, and
oil and gas. Our 30,000 professionals based in over 50 countries deliver
sustainability and profitability to customers worldwide. Expect results.
www.metso.com , www.twitter.com/metsogroup
Further information, please contact:
Matti Kähkönen, President and CEO, Metso Corporation, tel. +358 20 484 3000
Harri Nikunen, CFO, Metso Corporation, tel. +358 20 484 3010
Juha Rouhiainen, VP, Investor Relations, Metso Corporation, tel.
+358 20 484 3253
Invitation to news conferences
Metso will hold a news conference for media, investors and analysts in Helsinki
on Thursday, April 26, 2012 at 15:00 EEST / Helsinki, 08:00 EST / New York,
13:00 BST / London, 14:00 CEST / Paris. The event will take place at Metso Group
Head Office, Fabianinkatu 9 A, Helsinki, Finland. The news conference will be in
English.
The news conference can also be followed through a live webcast at
www.metso.com/irwebcasts or through a simultaneously arranged conference call.
It will be possible to ask questions during the event through a conference call
lines.
Due to the live webcast, we are kindly asking those attending the news
conference to be present 5 minutes prior the start of the event.
Conference call details
Conference call participants are requested to dial in a few minutes prior to the
start of the teleconference
US: +1 334 323 6201
other countries: +44 20 7162 0077
access code: 910 752
A replay will be available for 14 days until May 10, 2012 on the following phone
numbers:
US: +1 954 334 0342
other countries: +44 20 7031 4064
access code 910 752
After the news conference there will be an audio file (mp3) available for
downloading and at the latest on Friday, April 27, a transcript of the event at
www.metso.com/Investors. The presentation material will be available at
www.metso.com/Investors.
You are most welcome to participate in these events.
It should be noted that certain statements herein which are not historical
facts, including, without limitation, those regarding expectations for general
economic development and the market situation, expectations for customer
industry profitability and investment willingness, expectations for company
growth, development and profitability and the realization of synergy benefits
and cost savings, and statements preceded by "expects", "estimates", "forecasts"
or similar expressions, are forward-looking statements. These statements are
based on current decisions and plans and currently known factors. They involve
risks and uncertainties which may cause the actual results to materially differ
from the results currently expected by the company.
Such factors include, but are not limited to:
1) general economic conditions, including fluctuations in exchange rates and
interest levels, which influence the operating environment and profitability of
customers and thereby the orders received by the company and their margins
(2) the competitive situation, especially significant technological solutions
developed by competitors
(3) the company's own operating conditions, such as the success of production,
product development and project management and their continuous development and
improvement
(4) the success of pending and future acquisitions and restructuring.
Metso Corporation
Harri Nikunen
CFO
Juha Rouhiainen
VP, Investor Relations
Distribution:
NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Ltd
Media
www.metso.com