For the Rosenbauer Group, 2023 was the first year of a turnaround phase in which we intend to make significant progress in 2024. A record level of incoming orders of € 1,450.3 million increased our order backlog to € 1,788.0 million by the end of 2023, impressively demonstrating that our products and services are fit for the future. This also includes a large proportion of the necessary price adjustments that we have made. The public sector is currently unimpressed by the economic uncertainties and continues to invest in the safety of people and infrastructure. With this tailwind, we continued to implement numerous measures to increase efficiency in 2023 and completed our “Refocus, Restart” program as planned. Using value analyses of our products, we optimized their manufacturing costs, reduced production hours, renegotiated prices with our customers and adjusted payment terms with our suppliers. This enabled us to achieve an operational turnaround and subsequently generate a positive result for 2023.

We also optimized the geographical division of our global sales organization in the reporting year. The former NISA area (Northern Europe, Iberia, South America, Africa) was dissolved as an independent unit and responsibility for these national markets was transferred to the newly established Americas, Europe and Middle East & Africa sales regions. The aim was to simplify market cultivation through synergies and to become even more effective worldwide. In South America in particular, we see great potential through the merger with the north of the continent, as the national fire department organizations rely on both American and European truck chassis for their vehicles.

The start to the past financial year was initially rather bumpy. On the one hand, supply chain disruptions improved more slowly than expected. For example, although delivery times for chassis are now more stable, they are still longer than in the years before 2022. On-time delivery in particular is still not satisfactory. Secondly, in February 2023, the Rosenbauer Group became the target of a criminal cyber-attack that impaired external and internal material flows and led to production downtimes of up to two weeks. However, the early detection of this attack and the swift response of our Group IT and the experts called in enabled us to limit its impact and return to regular operations with even stricter security standards relatively quickly – without paying a ransom.

Against this backdrop, we are particularly pleased with the business and market successes of 2023, as they are the result of the hard work of the entire Rosenbauer team. For example, following a major order from the Federal Ministry of the Interior in 2021, the German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Brandenburg also decided to order a total of more than 80 firefighting vehicles from our ET model series in various configurations in the reporting year. We have handed over two of our all-electric “Revolutionary Technology” (RT) vehicles to the Vienna professional fire department, which were designed as innovative basic firefighting vehicles. Following on from Berlin and Basel, we are now represented with the RT in the entire GSA region and there are already 29 vehicles in the field worldwide. Rosenbauer Brandschutz has succeeded in winning an important contract from the Austrian power grid operator Austrian Power Grid (APG). As part of this collaboration, our experts in preventive fire protection will equip ten APG substations with highly efficient water spray extinguishing systems including infrared detection.

In the 2023 financial year, revenues amounted to € 1,064.5 million and were thus up 9.5% over the previous year. At the same time, EBIT improved considerably to € 37.5 million, following a negative EBIT in the previous year. As a consequence, a positive result for the period was achieved again and the company returned to profitability. The necessary working capital requirements and advance financing for production remained too high in 2023 and had a negative impact on key balance sheet figures such as equity and net debt. For this reason, we will take a very close look at our main value creation process, vehicle construction, in 2024 – from the quotation process through to customer invoicing. Only by significantly shortening our throughput times will we be able to sustainably reduce trade working capital and the associated costs.

Our financing partners have agreed to continue to support us on this path as part of a multilateral refinancing agreement that we concluded in March of this year and which is valid until November 2025. In line with this agreement, we will propose together with the Supervisory Board at the upcoming Annual General Meeting to waive a dividend payment for 2023 and instead retain these funds in the company. In addition, we are aiming for a capital increase in 2024, the proceeds of which will be used for the repayment of loans on the one hand and for further profitable growth on the other.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to our employees, who have shown a high level of commitment and dedication over the past year. I would like to thank you, our shareholders, for your patience and support during this challenging period for the company and look forward to continuing to count on your trust.