Eating Too Much Sulzer | company sector

(AWP) Sulzer Industrial Group (the sun 76.85 + 0.85%) The quarter was very successful. True, at first glance, requests fell. But that’s only because last year Medmix (medex 34.10 -0.23%) It still belongs to the group. At the general meeting on Wednesday, no one close to major shareholder Viktor Vekselberg will nominate him for re-election to the board of directors.

Specifically, Sulzer secured orders worth CHF858.5 million in the first quarter. This was down from about 874 million the previous year. Adjusting for Medmix’s impact, the number of orders rose 15% in the first quarter, the company announced Tuesday evening. Organic growth was good 14%. Medmix went public as an independent company last fall.

The company said the three divisions contributed to that finding. Particularly strong demand was felt in the industrial, energy and chemical markets.

Order growth was strongest in its smallest division, Chemtech, which grew organically by about a quarter. The demand for chemicals was particularly high in the United States, and there was also strong business activity in China. The largest division, Flow Equipment, received 14.5% of orders organically. With the acquisition of Nordic Water, growth was 16.4%.

The Services division grew organically by 8% compared to the same period last year. The Asia Pacific region in particular has benefited from the lifting of restrictions on access to customer sites. As a result, orders there increased by about a quarter. Repair work recovered across all product lines and geographies, and orders for parts and retrofits continued to rise, according to the release.

Confirmation of outlook and exit from the board of directors

With the order filed, it’s clear that Sulzer has exceeded analyst expectations. At the same time, the company confirmed projected organic growth of 2-4% for 2022 as a whole and an expected operating profit margin of approximately 10%. Sulzer also expects order growth for this year as a whole from 3 to 5%. In the medium term, Sulzer wants to increase sales by 4 to 6% annually and achieve a margin in the range of 10 to 11%. The company won’t release sales and earnings figures until the first half of the year.

Sulzer also announced his exit from the board of directors. According to the announcement, Mikhail Lifshitz will leave the board. He will not run for re-election to the GM on Wednesday. Lifshitz is a confidant of Sulzer’s major shareholders and Western-approved Russian Victor Vekselberg. With Lifshitz’s departure, the Tiwel holding company controlled by Vekselberg is still represented on the board by two board members – Alexey Moskov and David Metzger.

In addition, Heike van de Kerkhoff will not stand for election to the Board of Directors as originally scheduled for personal reasons. As a result, the Board of Directors will be reduced from eight to six members.