Delivery times too long

Despite revenue growth: Rosenbauer in the red

Rosenbauer is the largest fire equipment supplier in the world.

On Tuesday, the shareholders gave the green light for the capital increase at Rosenbauer, opening the door for an investor. Three days later, the firefighting equipment supplier from Leonding (Upper Austria) presented its figures for the first quarter of 2024. They showed an increase in turnover, but the result for the period was still negative.

After the first quarter of 2023, the result for the period amounted to minus 10.7 million euros, while Rosenbauer's result for 2024 was minus 9.1 million euros after three months - also a consequence of the high interest burden that the fire equipment supplier has to contend with.

The order books are full, not just for us, but for the entire industry. This is due to the difficult supply chains of recent years.

Sebastian Wolf, Vorstandsvorsitzender Rosenbauer

Strong increase in turnover
Day-to-day business at the company, which operates from Leonding (Upper Austria), is going well: thanks to a higher number of vehicles delivered at improved prices and also higher demand for equipment and service, turnover rose sharply to 225.6 million euros in the first quarter of 2024. After three months of 2023, this figure stood at 191.7 million euros. For the first time in two years, there was therefore already a positive operating result in the first quarter.

"Seeing growth for this year"
The Management Board around CEO Sebastian Wolf is looking ahead. "We foresee growth for this year," Wolf also emphasized at the Annual General Meeting on Tuesday. Behind the scenes, intensive discussions are underway to implement the capital increase in the best possible way for Rosenbauer. The shareholders of the Upper Austrian company paved the way for this with their yes vote.

Apart from this, work is also being done on improvements in ongoing operations: After focusing heavily on manufacturing costs in the previous year, Rosenbauer is now concentrating on becoming faster in production.

Target: 12 months delivery time
"We currently have a delivery time of 16 months in Europe and 22 months in the USA - that needs to be reduced," says Wolf. The guiding principle is to reduce the time between order receipt and delivery date to one year.