Rieter Holding AG (0QKA) Q4 2023 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning. Also a warm welcome from my side. Before I begin the presentation, let me draw your attention to the picture on the cover page. Here you see the new AirJet spinning machine, J70. This is our latest weapon in the fight to stand out from the competition and to further expand our market leadership. First, Let me start by briefly giving you an overview of what happened in 2023. We started the year with a large order backlog and our key focus was to deliver this backlog on time and cost. However, our supply chain readiness was not yet at the requested level. We still had missing material from some key suppliers. In February 2023, The earthquake in Turkey was not only a tragedy for the people and customers there, but also for our business. The textile exhibition ITMA in Milan in June 2023 was a resounding success for ITMA. The reservation lists for all new machines were fully booked within only a few days. At the beginning of July 2023, we have successfully closed the sale of land in Winterthur. And also in July 2023, we announced the performance program Next Level, which should bring us to a new performance level in the future. Order intake for the whole year was disappointing. We suffered from the low demand in the textile industry due to geopolitical challenges, inflation and high interest rates. The economic uncertainties were particularly noticeable in the demand for new machines, but also for consumables, wear and tear and spare parts, resulting in a low order intake for Riete. So, it was a challenging year, full of unexpected turmoil. But the team did great. We were able to roll out our backlog, eliminate the missing material, improve our profitability, and achieve a cost level which allows us to have a positive marg...