SCHMIDT + CLEMENS GROUP PRESENTS FAVOURABLE ANNUAL FINANCIAL RESULTS

In the past business year the Schmidt + Clemens Group (S+C), which operates worldwide, once again achieved very good financial results. The family-owned company is a world market leader in tube systems for the petrochemical industry and in 2014 was able to defend its outstanding position on the market.

S+C in 2014 recorded consolidated sales of euro 278 million. Total assets, at euro 151 million, was on the level of the previous year. At euro 198.5 million, the consolidated group's order backlog is at a high level.

„Sales lie about ten percent below last year," reports Jan Schmidt-Krayer, the company's managing partner. "The reasons for this were the low raw materials prices and the close-down of unprofitable divisions. With our product portfolio and thanks to prudent actions we have nonetheless attained very good results."

Like last year, the major portion of the profits was generated by its foreign subsidiaries. „The commercial framework conditions are becoming increasingly difficult in Germany. The Federal Government must realise that many of the new regulations for workplaces are counterproductive," warns Schmidt-Krayer. High energy costs and taxes as well as numerous bureaucratic requirements have permanently weakened the corporate group's headquarters site in Germany. "Not least of all, the steep rise in union-contract wages make competitive production in Germany more difficult," as Schmidt-Krayer further explained.

Due to heavy investments in its new plant in Malaysia, fixed assets rose by euro 16 million while circulating assets sank by euro 15 million. Together with an equity capital ratio that is very good and grew even further between 2013 and 2014, the S+C Group's fixed assets have been financed for the long term. This solid and diversified financial basis will in the future put S+C in a position to rapidly and flexibly react to its rising volume of business as well as to finance further strategic investments.

„Besides the difficult working parameters in Germany, the debt crisis in the Eurozone, political conditions in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine have had their impact on the 2014 business year," according to Schmidt-Krayer. "But we are still working very intensely on massively expanding our consolidated sales by 2019. We will be generating this growth from the new market for specialised piping in the onshore and offshore fields as well as from our burgeoning business in services." 

The Schmidt + Clemens Group employs over one thousand people worldwide (including about 600 in Germany) and, besides its traditional site in Germany, has productive operating plant in Spain, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.

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