Supply Chain Solutions segment

Business performance and order intake

The Supply Chain Solutions segment saw a significant year-on-year improvement of 15.5 per cent in its order intake to €2,425.2 million (2017: €2,099.2 million). Negative currency effects of €88.0 million, which were mainly due to the US dollar being weaker on average during the year, were easily offset. Adjusted for currency effects, order intake was up by 19.7 per cent. Following a muted start to 2018, project business (business solutions) received major orders – especially in the second and third quarters – and thus registered strong year-on-year growth. Overall, project business generated 76.5 per cent of the segment’s order intake (2017: 75.4 per cent). The growing trend for the outsourcing of logistics processes and the related downstream services provides good foundations for the rapidly expanding service business (customer services) in the Supply Chain Solutions segment.

Revenue

The segment’s total revenue increased by a moderate 2.3 per cent to €2,055.2 million (2017: €2,009.5 million), following a strong finish to the year in the fourth quarter. However, delays in the awarding of projects by customers – some of which stretched back to 2017 – took their toll on revenue in the first nine months of 2018. The fourth quarter rally was unable to fully make up for this, which meant that revenue was at the lower end of the target range. Excluding negative currency effects of €76.5 million, the year-on-year increase was 6.1 per cent. Project business accounted for 73.8 per cent of external revenue and the service business for 26.2 per cent. The segment generated 65.7 per cent of its revenue in North America (2017: 56.8 per cent).

Earnings

The segment’s adjusted EBIT came to €180.2 million, which was below the figure for the previous year of €188.7 million. The continued delays in the awarding of projects by customers led to temporary underutilisation of project-related personnel capacity in 2018. Currency effects also had an adverse impact on EBIT. The adjusted EBIT margin fell to 8.8 per cent (2017: 9.4 per cent).

After taking into account non-recurring items and purchase price allocation effects, which were down year on year, EBIT improved significantly to €64.4 million (2017: minus 16.6 million). Adjusted EBITDA came to €231.5 million (2017: €235.7 million), with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.3 per cent (2017: 11.7 per cent). > TABLE 016