HEINZEL GROUP increases production and completely frees itself from debt in the pandemic year 2020
HEINZEL GROUP recorded a respectable result in the challenging environ-ment of 2020 and created a good basis for further growth after completely freeing itself from debt. Sebastian Heinzel joins the management as Chief Strategy Officer with immediate effect. HEINZEL GROUP increased production in both the paper and pulp segments in the 2020 financial year, with total production rising to 1,607,030 metric tons in 2020. The growth in paper volume is at-tributable to the first full year of operation of the PM3 in Pöls, which specializes in low-grammage kraft paper, and the very good performance of the PM10 in Laakirchen, which produced more con-tainerboard than in the previous year. Total sales volume amounted to 3.7 million metric tons and was slightly lower than in 2019 due to the corona pandemic. Coupled with lower market prices, HEINZEL GROUP’s net sales consequently declined to EUR 1,611.7 million. Although lower wood prices and large-scale savings measures had a positive effect, HEINZEL GROUP’s EBITDA, at EUR 126.0 million, fell to the level of 2017. The group’s EBIT decreased to EUR 57.7 million and net profit for the year to EUR 39.9 million. Against this backdrop it is all the more remarkable that HEINZEL GROUP was able to completely free itself from debt and increase the equity ratio to 59.2%.