After the progress made in the past four years, the Wintersteiger Group has again reported strong growth for the 2019 financial year. The total turnover of the diversified Austrian-based engineering goup increased by 14 percent to €182 million, achieving an Ebitda margin of more than 10 percent.
Growth was achieved by all the business units of the company. In the Sports area, Wintersteiger says it further consolidated its leading position in the ski and snowboard maintenance machinery sector with a sales increase of €5 million to €74 million. In this area, where it is catering to the growing trend toward equipment rentals, it also develops and sells systems for the hygienic drying of sports goods and work clothes.
After several years of stagnation, the Seedmech business field, which specializes in solutions for seed breeding, managed to increase its turnover by €10 million to €41 million. The turnover in the Woodtech business field grew by €4 million to €34 million in 2019. In the Metals sector, sales went up by €3 million to €33 million
Part of the overall growth last year came from a few acquisitions outside the Sports segment that generated extra revenues of €9 million.
Wintersteiger is not planning any major new acquisitions at this stage but is interested in complementary operations with an annual turnover of around €10 million that it can buy with its cash flow.
Noting that it has enough capital, and little indebtedness, to withstand the Covid-19 crisis, the management claims that it can benefit from it because its clients will appreciate its flexibility, renting new models instead of purchasing them.
Founded in 1953, the group employs more than 1,000 people worldwide.
