DGAP-News

SAF-HOLLAND S.A. defies weak US market and achieves 2016 sales and earnings targets

DGAP-News: SAF-HOLLAND S.A. / Key word(s): Final Results SAF-HOLLAND S.A. defies weak US market and achieves 2016 sales and earnings targets 17.03.2017 / 07:30 The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. SAF-HOLLAND defies weak US market and achieves 2016 sales and earnings targets

- Sales in 2016 reach EUR 1,042.0 million (previous year: EUR 1,060.7 million); Group organic sales at previous year's level

- At 8.7%, 2016 adjusted EBIT margin reaches upper half of target range of 8 to 9%

- Dividend per share to increase by 10% to EUR 0.44 (previous year: EUR 0.40)

- 2017 full-year outlook: Sales to increase to EUR 1,060 million to EUR 1,090 million; adjusted EBIT margin to remain in the range of 8 to 9% and, from today's perspective, should tend toward the middle of this range

Luxembourg, March 17, 2017 -- SAF-HOLLAND S.A., the supplier to the trailer, truck and bus industries, achieved its targets for the 2016 financial year. Despite a decline in many of the world's commercial vehicles markets, SAF-HOLLAND still generated essentially unchanged Group organic sales of EUR 1,052.9 million in 2016. This organic sales figure excludes negative currency effects of EUR 12.7 million and the contribution to sales from the acquisition of KLL. Important to note is that the AerWay product line, which was sold at the end of 2015, had still contributed roughly EUR 6.8 million to sales in 2015. The acquired Brazilian suspension specialist KLL contributed EUR 1.8 million to Group sales in the fourth quarter of 2016. The stable business development in 2016 can mainly be attributed to the EMEA/India region where sales increased by 5.3% to EUR 568.8 million (previous year: EUR 540.0 million; currency adjusted: +6.3%). Sales in the APAC/China region in 2016 were essentially stable at EUR 70.9 million (previous year: EUR 71.3 million; currency adjusted: +3.1%). These two regions were largely able to compensate for the pronounced weakness in the truck and trailer markets in North America and Brazil. In the Americas region, SAF-HOLLAND recorded a 10.5% decline in sales in 2016 to EUR 402.3 million (previous year: EUR 449.4 million; -8.5% on an organic basis) but still managed to significantly outperform the overall market.