Annual Press Conference: tesa AG achieves double-digit returns on sales for the first time

tesa AG, Hamburg, closed the 2007 fiscal year with excellent operating results.

Sales rose by 6.7% (adjusted for currency exchange 8.1%), to € 846 million. This put growth at 4%, once again above the market trend. The results based on EBIT were 20.5% higher than the previous year, rising by a greater-than-average proportion to € 88 million. The return on sales rose to 10.4% (previous year: 9.2%).

2007 was once again a successful business year for tesa AG

The profit after tax also saw very positive
development, growing by 27.4% to € 57.6 million. “This development proves that tesa has not only evolved into a company that can remain competitive for the long term, but also a profitable one,” said tesa AG CEO Dieter Steinmeyer at the press conference in Frankfurt.

At the same time, the number of employees worldwide rose to 3,855. “In 2007, we created more than 130 jobs, primarily in the areas of research, development, and sales,” Steinmeyer said. “Our goals in this are, and remain, to consistently improve our ability to innovate and to expand our global sales and distribution structures, with an emphasis on growth regions.”

The innovation rate, measured over a five-year period, rose by one percentage point, to 48%, year on year. Steinmeyer on this development: “We are a capable partner in providing solutions to our customers from the industrial sector. We earn nearly half of our total sales with new products, meaning those that have been launched on the market within the last five years. This demonstrates our power to innovate.”

Another crucial factor in the group’s success is its global orientation. “We can offer our globally operating customers completely integrated service in any country,” Steinmeyer told the media audience.

The first two months of the 2008 fiscal year are building on the positive development of the preceding year. Detailed information on the first quarter of 2008 will be published on May 6, when it will be available online at
www.tesa.com/Investors..

You can download the full business report (14 pages, RTF, 201 KB) here.