"As a practically debt-free company we possess a comfortable financial scope," Schachler said in an advanced release of a speech to the company's meeting of shareholders in Hamburg.

"But we intend to undertake small or medium sized acquisitions rather than a large transaction."

Schachler repeated his previous forecast for the group's performance in the current 2018/19 current financial year.

He said that full year operating EBT will be "moderately lower" than in the previous year and that operating return on capital employed will be "slightly lower" than the prior year.

(Reporting by Michael Hogan, editing by Riham Alkousaa)