Voestalpine : posts record revenue for the business year 2018/19, lower earnings due to non-recurring effects

Subject to the approval of the Annual General Meeting of voestalpine AG, which will take place on July 3, 2019, the plan is to pay a dividend of EUR 1.10 per share for the business year 2018/19 to the shareholders. While this represents a decrease of 21.4% compared with the previous year's dividend of EUR 1.40 per share, it must be noted that the business year 2017/18 was the Group's most successful in its history. The current dividend proposal corresponds to the dividend paid for the-good-business year 2016/17. As a result, the dividend yield for the business year 2018/19 is 3.1% and the distribution ratio 48.1%. The gearing ratio (net financial debt in percent of equity) for the 2018/19 was largely stable at 46.6% compared with the previous year's level of 45.7%. While equity rose by EUR 160 million from EUR 6.55 billion to EUR 6.71 billion due to the earnings performance and thus represents a new all-time high, the net financial debt rose by EUR 130 million to EUR 3.1 billion as of the close of the business year 2018/19. As of March 31, 2019, the voestalpine Group had 51,907 employees (FTE), an increase of 0.6% year over year. Approximately one half of all of the Group's employees-including all employees in Austria-have a stake in voestalpine AG via voestalpine Mitarbeiterbeteiligung Privatstiftung (a private foundation for the company's employee shareholding scheme) and thus hold approximately 14.8% in toto of their company's shares.