MUNICH/WOLFSBURG (dpa-AFX) - The VW commercial vehicle subsidiary Traton is entering the new year with unexpectedly high targets after strong year-end business. CEO Christian Levin sees the still high order backlog as the basis, and the manager also expects further efficiency gains from the merging of the Group's brands, according to reports from Munich on Tuesday. Last week, arch-rival Daimler Truck also impressed investors with a confident forecast, surprising them in view of the gloomy economic outlook.

However, the Traton share was not able to benefit from the management's optimism quite as much as the Swabian company before the weekend. The Traton share was up 2.7 percent at EUR 27.14 in the morning. JPMorgan analyst Jose Asumendi attested the truck and bus manufacturer from the VW Group a strong performance and also saw the outlook as positive.

However, the expert also referred to the sharp increase in capital expenditure on property, plant and equipment forecast by the company for the new year. Expenditure on research and development is also expected to increase, albeit only moderately. The Volkswagen Group as a whole had already announced before the weekend that it would be investing a lot of money in development and facilities this year.

The Traton management is aiming for a range of minus 5 to plus 10 percent in sales and turnover compared to the previous year. The Management Board expects the operating profit margin adjusted for special effects to be between 8.0 and 9.0 percent. Analysts had previously expected both figures to be at the lower end of the range. In the vehicle business alone - i.e. excluding financial services - Traton is targeting a return on sales of 9.0 to 10.0 percent, a similar level to Daimler Truck (9.0 to 10.5 percent).

Last year, Traton also exceeded market expectations with the Scania, MAN, Navistar and South American Volkswagen Truck & Bus brands. Turnover rose by 16 percent to 46.9 billion euros. Adjusted operating profit almost doubled to 4.03 billion euros and the corresponding margin increased by 3.5 percentage points to 8.6 percent. In addition to higher unit sales and better sales price implementation, improved plant capacity utilization drove profitability up. In the previous year, the shortage of parts, particularly for electronic chips, had significantly restricted production in many cases.

The earnings pearl Scania once again achieved a double-digit percentage margin and the savings program at the former problem child MAN is now bearing fruit. The US brand Navistar also became more profitable. In South America, the margin fell due to pull-forward effects at the end of 2022 as a result of stricter emissions regulations in the important Brazilian market. However, the smallest Group division, Volkswagen Truck & Bus, still generated a higher return than MAN and Navistar.

At 2.45 billion euros, the profit attributable to shareholders was more than twice as high as the previous year's figure of 1.14 billion euros. The dividend is expected to increase accordingly from 70 cents to 1.50 euros per share. Around 90 percent of the shares belong to the Volkswagen Group./men/mne/stk