BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Fuchs Petrolub AG (FUPEF.PK) reported Wednesday a higher profit for its first quarter, benefited by improved performance in all three regions, despite margin pressure. Looking ahead for fiscal 2012, the German lubricants maker said it anticipates sales revenues and earnings to increase.
First-quarter profit increased 9 percent to 51.5 million euros from 47.1 million euros a year ago. Earnings per share grew to 0.72 euros from 0.65 euros in the prior year.
Earnings before interest and tax or EBIT for the quarter increased 7.6 percent from last year to 72.5 million euros. Meanwhile, gross margin declined to 36.1 percent from last year's 37.7 percent as the material and production costs for lubricants increased above-average by 13.9 percent.
Sales revenues improved 11 percent to 448.4 million euros. The results were benefited by a 2.3 percent of currency translation effects. On an organic basis, revenues grew 8.7 percent.
The company noted that all three global regions contributed to the growth, mainly with the encouraging and ongoing development in North America, Australia and Eastern Europe.
In the Europe region, sales revenues increased 6.7 percent due to price adjustments and product mix. Asia-Pacific, Africa recorded the strongest regional growth with a 19.4 percent increase mainly driven by Australian operations and currency conversion effects. North and South America generated a 15.8 percent increase in sales partly due to the strength of the US dollar.
Looking ahead for fiscal 2012, Fuchs Petrolub said it is striving to exceed last year's EBIT of 264.2 million euros, provided the financial crisis in Europe, any geopolitical tensions and increasing raw material prices will not have a severely negative impact on the global economy. 'However, the earnings recorded in the first quarter cannot simply be extrapolated over the full year,' the company noted.
Regarding the future, the company stated that despite the various latent risks in place, it rates the current overall economic situation as positive.
The euro zone is still on the edge of a slight recession, but tensions in the financial markets caused by fears of a crisis have been eased since the start of 2012, the company noted. The emerging countries appear to be relatively robust and the recovery in the US has stabilized in the last few quarters.
On the basis of the mixed economic framework, the company expects slight growth in global lubricant consumption for 2012.
Fuchs Petrolub shares are currently trading at 42.89 euros, up 0.74 euros or 1.76 percent on Frankfurt's Xetra.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2012 AFX News
