FRANKFURT, May 11 (Reuters) – Thyssenkrupp on Wednesday raised its outlook for 2022 revenue and operating profit, but lowered its free cash flow forecast, due to higher prices sales and raw material costs.
The title of the company took 6.93% at the start of the session on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
The German steel group expects negative free cash flow before mergers and acquisitions in the hundreds of millions of euros, when it previously forecast the balance.
“Dynamic commodity and material price movements are currently weighing on our cash flow. However, we expect sequential improvements for us over the coming quarters,” Chief Financial Officer Klaus Keysberg said.
The group said it aimed to start paying dividends again and generate positive cash flow, adding that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made it “more difficult to predict when precisely we will achieve these goals”. .
The company, however, benefited from higher selling prices for steel and materials, she added, noting that she now expected sales to rise by a low double-digit percentage, versus a mid-single-digit percentage forecast previously.
Annual adjusted profit before interest and tax (Ebit) is now expected to reach at least 2.0 billion euros, said Thyssenkrupp, which previously forecast adjusted Ebit of 1.5 to 1.8 billion euros.
In the second quarter, adjusted Ebit nearly quadrupled to 802 million euros, while revenue rose nearly a quarter to 10.6 billion as orders jumped 57%. (Report Christoph Steitz, French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Kate Entringer)