SLM So­lu­tions Group AG, Lübeck, Germany, reports that the company gen­er­ated 22% rev­enue growth in what it stated was a chal­leng­ing 2016 fis­cal year. The con­sol­i­dated rev­enue of the group rose to €80,707,000 dur­ing the year, up from €66,137,000 in 2015. SLM reported that the ma­jor­ity of this rev­enue (86.3%, compared to 89.5% in the pre­vi­ous year) stemmed from the com­pany’s core busi­ness com­pris­ing the sale of laser melt­ing sys­tems. Rev­enue in the After Sales seg­ment recorded a dis­pro­por­tion­ately high in­crease of 58.2% to €11,032,000 (compared to €6,972,000 in the previous year).

Uwe Böger­shausen, CFO of the Com­pany, stated, “SLM So­lu­tions once again suc­ceeded in re­al­is­ing clear dou­ble-digit rev­enue growth. This rep­re­sents a con­tin­u­a­tion of our com­pany’s very pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment. How­ever, we are con­vinced that the out­stand­ing tech­nol­ogy em­ployed by our ma­chines can en­able us to achieve con­sid­er­ably higher growth rates in fu­ture. It goes with­out say­ing that such de­vel­op­ment should also once again pos­i­tively in­flu­ence earn­ings.”

New order in­take in 2016 came in at 130 or­dered ma­chines. This rep­re­sents an in­crease of around 27.5% com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year’s 102 ma­chines. The value of the or­dered ma­chines rose dis­pro­por­tion­ately by 30.9% to €79,992,000 in 2016 com­pared to the num­ber of ma­chines or­dered, compared to the pre­vi­ous year’s machine value of €61,132,000.

The total op­er­at­ing rev­enue for 2016, including the sum of con­sol­i­dated rev­enue, in­ven­tory changes and other own work cap­i­talised, was reported to be €90,476 – up by 15% year on year against the previous year’s operating revenue of €78,654,000. The cost of ma­te­ri­als ratio as a percentage of the total operating revenue was reported at 54.4%, a slight increase on the pre­vi­ous year’s 53.7%.

Ad­justed EBITDA, however, was recorded at €3,069,000 down from €8,050,000 in the pre­vi­ous year, with an ad­justed EBITDA mar­gin of 3.8% in 2016 compared to 12.2% in 2015. On an un­ad­justed basis, EBITDA stood at €2,040,000 (pre­vi­ous year: €6,860,000).

“The 2016 fis­cal year was dom­i­nated by ex­tra­or­di­nary events and earn­ings fell short of our ex­pec­ta­tions. Nev­er­the­less, we still view the past year as pos­i­tive over­all: The gen­eral in­ter­est in the tech­nol­ogy rose con­sid­er­ably and the in­dus­trial rel­e­vance is un­de­ni­able. This leaves us look­ing for­ward to the rest of the cur­rent 2017 fis­cal year with great op­ti­mism,” commented Böger­shausen.

Hen­ner Schöneborn, CTO of SLM So­lu­tions, added, “We be­lieve that we are ex­cel­lently po­si­tioned for fur­ther growth with our multi-laser tech­nol­ogy. Our newly in­tro­duced ma­chines which can be fit­ted with mul­ti­ple 700-watt lasers are ex­cel­lently suited for the se­ries pro­duc­tion of parts. At the same time we are per­ma­nently ex­pand­ing our range of com­pe­ten­cies– we are aim­ing to con­tinue our de­vel­op­ment into an in­te­grated so­lu­tions provider through close co­op­er­a­tion with the in­dus­try.”

SLM’s Man­age­ment Board has stated that it an­tic­i­pates a con­sol­i­dated rev­enue of be­tween €110,000,000 and €120,000,000 for 2017, depending on the advantageous po­si­tion of the tech­nol­ogy in the mar­ket to form the foun­da­tions for a re­turn to the strong growth track of pre­vi­ous years. If the fore­cast rev­enue cor­ri­dor is achieved, the Man­age­ment Board an­tic­i­pates an ad­justed EBITDA mar­gin of be­tween 10% and 13%.

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