Heidelberg says its investors high conversion rate of shares gives the company a stronger financial footing.
At the end of June, investors in a mature convertible bond of €60m ($93.5m) converted almost 95 percent of their stake into Heidelberg shares. The company says this sees its debts continue to decrease and the yearly costs of interest reduced by around €5m and profitability increases, plus the equity ratio rises by almost 2.5 percent.
Dirk Kaliebe, chief financial officer at Heidelberg, says, “We are very pleased to see the capital market’s confidence in the future of Heidelberg further strengthened. The increased share price and the conversion of the bond into equity are important indicators for us that we have been able to convince investors of our Heidelberg goes digital strategy.”
Heidelberg digital strategy has three pillars: digital transformation, technological leadership, and operational excellence. Heidelberg plans a number of individual measures to achieve continuous growth culminating in Group sales of around €3bn by 2022. It also plans to increase profitability to an EBITDA of €250m to €300m and an after-tax profit of more than €100m.
Kaliebe adds, “The remarkably high conversion percentage will greatly lower interest costs, thereby strengthening the company’s financial footing and giving Heidelberg additional latitude for accelerated implementation of its digitization strategy. We will continue to work on steadily reducing our financing costs in the future also.”
