Stahl’s tenacity to face the slowdown of the automotive segment. During the first nine months of 2019, Netherland-based chemical producer has sold goods for 611.5 million euro (-7.6% on yearly base) and is looking for a solution to exit the stand-by period.
Macro-economic weakness
“Just as in the first semester, Stahl continued to be affected by the overall macro-economic weakness of China”. Adding even more weight to the negative moment, is the commercial war between the USA and Beijing, which is added to the “decrement of industrial production at a global level, which seems to have spread to the chemical segment”. Wendel Group’s executives, owner of the Dutch company, chose the mentioned words to explain the current state of the industry during the meeting with investors. In this occasion the company also chose to present a hypothesized yearly result based on the trend from the last 12 months that closed on June 30th. The outcome: 830 million euro in sales, down 4.1% from the past year. With a decrement of 6.3% in the performance of the department manufacturing chemicals for the tanning industry.
70% chemicals for tanning
“The challenging market conditions of the automotive and footwear segments have weighted on the chemicals for tanning the most, which is an issue for Stahl as the department accounts for 70% of sales – says the group -. Even with these difficult conditions, and thanks to our resilient business model, Stahl was able to quickly adapt. The company will continue to do so through a reduction of fixed costs. This strategy should continue to mitigate the impact on the margins, as already shown throughout the first half of the year”.
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