Fuchs has published its financial results for the first quarter of this year, with it showing a modest improvement on last’s year’s strong results.
Since it was founded in Mannheim as a family business in 1931, Fuchs has gone on to become the world’s biggest independent lubricant provider, with operations in over 50 countries (including the UK) with over 6,800 employees. It says it covers nearly all industries in supplying products like hydraulic oil, gear oil and metalworking products.
The company’s boss, Stefan Fuchs, said that despite the economic environment being rather unstable, Fuchs had managed to improve on strong results from the same quarter with an EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) of €108 million – an increase of €1 million. He also said:
“Our sales revenues were 5% higher than last year thanks to business expansion and external growth. Once again, we benefited from our broad geographical positioning. Regarding the earnings development, China continued its positive development and started strongly into the year, which enabled a significant earnings increase in the Asia-Pacific region.”
He added that this increase had offset performance in Africa, the Middle East and Europe, which was a little weaker year-on-year, and went on to predict that the full-year EBIT will be something like €460 million.
Fuchs said that the company was well-positioned to operate among the ongoing trade disputes, because it has regional centres in the USA, China and Europe that are generally independent, making the effects manageable. He did caution, however, that further escalations could impact the global economy, consequently affecting the company’s results.
