Chief executive Gerold Linzbach stated that after the extensive cost-cutting restructuring measures of the past three years: “We are doing everything to ensure that the restructuring story turns into a growth story again.”
The firm also gave a hint about its upcoming Drupa launches, and said that it was “intensifying” its joint venture with Fujifilm for digital printing and consumables. Inkjet digital printing systems for commercial print and packaging will be shown at Drupa 2016, although no further details were available.
The consumables partnership with Fujifilm will expand “primarily in the areas of printing chemicals, inks and coatings”.
Group sales in the year to 31 March fell 4.1% to €2.33bn (£1.7bn). Sales at its Equipment division fell 5.6% to €1.39bn while Services slipped 1.8% to €935m.
The group had already flagged that a slowdown in the Chinese market would impact its results. It also offloaded a large chunk of its post-press operation through deals with Muller Martini and Masterwork Machinery, which contributed to the sales decline.
The UK was described as a "positive performance".
The group’s EBITDA figure of €188m (2014: €143m) was flattered by a €50m gain due to the restructuring of its German pension scheme, but the like-for-like margin was still marginally ahead of the prior year.
However, restructuring and special costs of €99m propelled the group to a €76m pre-tax loss. The net loss was €72m.
Heidelberg made a number of strategic acquisitions in the consumables space over the period, buying BluePrint Products and Printing Systems Group (PSG), as well as Fujifilm’s Swedish dealer.
Linzbach said the aim in the medium-term was to grow consumables and services, which currently make up around 40% of sales, to become the dominant part of the business at over 50% of turnover. He is targeting overall sales growth of 2%-4% in the same timeframe.
The BluePrint and PSG businesses should add circa €130m in sales to the top line.
Linzbach is still scoping out other potential acquisition targets. “We are looking at some interesting candidates,” he said.
In digital printing equipment, he has set a “lower limit” sales target of €200m. Heidelberg is continuing to develop digital printing solutions for markets outside the core graphic arts industry, such as the industrial product decoration applications it highlighted last year.
Its Jetmaster Dimension system will also be expanded into larger formats.
In toner digital printing systems, the firm’s partnership with Ricoh has resulted in sales of more than 500 printers.
And in its core sheetfed printing equipment market, Heidelberg revealed that over the past few years its customer base had shrunk from 200,000 “all-round print shops” to 15,000 “specialists”. Some 80% of sales are generated from 3,000 top customers. “Although our customer base has contracted in recent years, we have improved the average sales per investing customer by 8% since 2010,” the company stated.
It claimed leadership of the sheetfed sector with 42% of the market, ahead of Komori on 18% and KBA on 16%. Heidelberg said the weak yen had helped Komori overtake KBA.
However, KBA marketing director Klaus Schmidt disputed this, saying that its own figures put KBA and Komori level on around 17% each.
Heidelberg shares slipped €0.05 to €2.37 on the news.
Alongside its results, Heidelberg unveiled a new logo with a revamped, coloured ‘H’, designed to reflect “the three customer touch points of service, equipment and consumables”.
