Finance

Profitable growth and increase in margins

Siegfried continued to grow profitably in the 2021 business year, increasing net sales to 1102.4 million Swiss francs. This is the first time in its long history that the Group has achieved sales of more than one billion Swiss francs.

The two important foreign currencies, the euro and the US dollar, moved in different directions against the Swiss franc in the year under review: the euro, which gained in importance with the acquisition in Spain, appreciated slightly against the Swiss franc. The US dollar, on the other hand, depreciated against the Swiss franc. Overall, the effect was small but slightly positive. In local currency, the growth compared to the previous year was +30.3%, in Swiss francs 30.5%.

Core gross profit increased to 239.3 million Swiss francs, corresponding to a slight improvement in the core gross profit margin from 21.0% in the previous year to 21.7% in the year under review.

Core EBITDA (CHF 207.2 million, +38.8%), Core EBIT (CHF 124.4 million, +32.0%) and Core net ­profit (CHF 93.6 million, +29.0%) developed very positively. Core EBITDA and Core EBIT again grew relatively stronger than sales compared to the previous year. This was reflected accordingly in an increase in margins: the core EBITDA margin was 18.8% (previous year: 17.7%). The core EBIT margin (11.3%) also increased compared to the previous year (11.2%).

Siegfried has introduced the core Metrics with the presentation of the half-year results in 2019. The core results exclude extraordinary expenses and income in a transparent and easy to understand way enabling the market participants to better understand the company’s operational performance and allowing a better comparison across periods. Siegfried is using the core results in addition to the Swiss GAAP FER results as important indicators for the internal assessment of the performance of the group. In the current year 2021, the reported results are corrected for technical and non-cash effects from an interest rate change effect on the value of pension obligations from foreign pension plans, extra­ordinary effects from changes in the Swiss tax law, integration costs related to the acquisition in Spain and restructuring costs. All expenses in connection with the cyber attack and the fraudulent payments were not corrected in the Core figures. These are fully included in the Core figures.