Basler has presented the audited financial statements for 2019. In a declining market environment in 2019, consolidated sales continued to grow at a high level and amounted to 162.0 million Euro (previous year: 150.0 million Euro). At 166.5 million Euro, incoming orders also exceeded the previous year's figure of 154.0 million Euro. The pre-tax result fell to Euro 16.9 million (previous year: Euro 24.5 million, -31 %), in particular due to planned strategic investments in the form of personnel expansion. The return before taxes thus totaled 10.4 % (previous year: 16.3 %).

With these results Basler meets the forecast communicated to the capital market. Free cash flow as the sum of cash flow from operating activities and cash flow from investments reached a value of -9.7 million Euro (previous year: 1.3 million Euro). This was extraordinarily burdened by the acquisition of MVLZ Sanbao Xingye in 2019.

Coronavirus halted economic recovery

After a phase of market contraction of around 10% in 2019, the Basler group assumed until the beginning of March that the market would stabilize structurally until low single-digit growth in fiscal year 2020. However, the outbreak of the coronavirus at the turn of the year and the pandemic spread is currently leading to a sharp change in the economic outlook and a high risk of a global recession. Even though the sales and procurement market situation of the Basler group has been relatively stable so far, the management expects noticeable effects in the course of the coming quarters. Due to the topicality of the events, the effects cannot be quantified at present.

Due to these uncertainties, the Management Board of Basler has decided to issue a forecast for the first half of the year for the time being. The outlook for the full fiscal year will follow together with the publication of the half-year report. For the first half of 2020, the group expects a sales corridor of EUR 70-78 million with a pre-tax return of between 6 % and 10 %. This forecast is based on the assumption that the situation in China will continue to gradually improve during the second quarter and that there will be a significant weakening of demand in the regions of Europe and North America in the second quarter.