The EADS CEOs Philippe Camus and Rainer Hertrich said: “We are proud of EADS’ five years of consistently solid results and its outstanding track record of growth. EADS can look forward to a strong financial future developing opportunities across its balanced aerospace and defence portfolio.” The CEOs continued: “These results demonstrate the validity of the strategy we developed at the foundation of EADS in 2000. It is a testament to a consistently applied, long-term industrial strategy.”
Speaking on the occasion of their fifth and final annual press conference, Camus and Hertrich noted: “Today, we thank our international management team and all EADS employees for five years of outstanding performance and success in taking EADS ‘The Step Beyond’. Together we have transformed several very individual companies into a single global industrial leader. We integrated our businesses and maintained our diversity as one of our competitive advantages. We are proud to announce that we have delivered what we promised to our stakeholders five years ago. EADS is in a strong financial position and has extremely promising future growth potential.”
Looking ahead, the CEOs elaborated on their roadmap for the future of EADS: “EADS must continue to evolve, but profitability remains the key driver of our strategy. Strengthening its competitive position and managing the US Dollar weakness are key challenges the company must overcome to sustain its industrial leadership in commercial aircraft and helicopters.”
Camus and Hertrich underlined the importance of the company’s international, technology and human resources efforts: “EADS must also continue to develop the major growth markets outside of Europe. The strong order-book will provide for mid-term growth in defence. But over the longterm a solid and growing defence business requires EADS to go beyond home markets and beyond its existing product-range. EADS should continue its transformation by expanding its global industrial presence, by a strong commitment to technology and R&D investment and by preserving its first class recruitment, retention and education programmes aimed at attracting the best multi-national talent for the company’s future.”
Order Book continues to increase The EADS order intake remained strongly above the level of revenues and amounted to € 44.1 billion in 2004. The EADS order book increased by nearly three percent to € 184.3 billion (2003: € 179.3 billion). At constant exchange rates, the increase would have been about seven percent. 2004 saw continued growth in the defence order book, to € 49.1 billion.
Strong increase in Cash – after continuing investments EADS’ net cash position was boosted 31 percent to € 4.1 billion (2003: € 3.1 billion) signalling early market recovery in the commercial aircraft market and better management of programme financing in Defence. Free Cash Flow before Customer Financing was again strongly positive reaching € 1.8 billion (2003: € 2.1 billion). This performance includes the high R&D and investment spending for the A380 and the company’s continued investment in other future growth drivers like the A400M, NH90 and other helicopters, Paradigm Secure Communications and the tanker boom. Airbus Customer Financing also indicates a commercial aviation recovery as gross exposure has decreased since 2003 following two years of strong net cash demand.
Net Income in 2004 was at € 1.03 billion, up 60 percent from last year’s Net Income of € 644 million. The 2003 figure (reported at € 152 million) was restated for comparison following the implementation of the IFRS3 accounting rule. Net Income no longer includes regular goodwill amortization. Earnings per share stood at € 1.29, up from € 0.80 in 2003. In light of EADS’ continuing strong performance, the Board of Directors is recommending to the Annual General Meeting of shareholders an increased dividend of € 0.50 per share. EADS CFO Hans Peter Ring commented: “This dividend proposal indicates our strong intention to share the fruits of success with EADS’ investors. It is further evidence that EADS is entering a new growth period.”
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