11.07.2012

Liebherr up 9.8%

Crane and construction group Liebherr has reported a 9.8 percent rise in revenues to €8.33 billion ($10.2 billion) for 2011 – close to its record of €8.4 billion in 2008.

Overall crane sales - including mobile cranes, tower and maritime cranes were up almost nine percent to around €3.25 billion ($4 billion) – 'around' because its tower and duty cycle crane business is rolled in with concrete mixing products – so we are obliged to estimate the crane element of that division. Crane sales were boosted by a slowly recovering tower crane market and an almost 11 percent growth in the maritime crane business to €808 million ($990 million).

Liebherr Ehingen which builds mobile and crawler cranes saw revenues slip four percent to €1.74 billion ($2.13 billion)– its record year was 2008 when the company achieved €1.96 billion ($2.4 billion).

Geographically Europe remains the largest market for the Liebherr group at 57 percent of total sales, but Western European growth last year was just 3.5 percent, while Eastern Europe jumped 42.3 percent to €907 million.

In other areas The Americas had another strong year with sales up €20.7 percent to €1.37 billion, the Far East and Australasia was up 12.5 percent to €1.47 billion, Africa grew 34.4 percent to €470.5 million and the Middle East plummeted 37 percent to €290.7 million due to the completion of the large-scale project in Saudi Arabia.

The company’s 10 largest markets in 2011 were: Germany, Russia, the USA, France, Australia, Brazil, the UK, China, the Netherlands and Austria.

Capital expenditure for the year was €669.1 million ($820 million), of which €53.4 million ($65 million) was invested in Ehingen for the construction of a new building for large crane assembly prior to delivery and for the storage, packaging and loading of equipment for these cranes.

In terms of profitability, the company reported a “net result” of €484.4 million ($593 million) - two percent lower than last year. For 2012 it expects improvments in all divisions, resulting in an overall increase in revenues of 10 percent.

Vertikal Comment

Another strong year from Liebherr which has come through the recession in amazing style after posting a 16.9 percent drop in revenues for 2009 it was up nine percent last year and now 9.8 percent this year, with the expectation to achieve a new record in 2013 as it sweeps past the €9 billion ($11 billion) level for the first time. Impressive by anyone’s standards, but for a privately held family company and without acquisitons - even more so.

Having completed its new buildings at the mobile crane plant in Ehingen the company will be looking to continue its progress back towards 2008’s record sales. With crane prices increasing and having sold its first 3,000 tonne crawler crane it may well come close to achieving that in 2013.