The Divisions.

Rail Vehicle Systems Division

Incoming orders for the Rail Vehicle Systems division rose by 5.8% year on year from € 3,798.0 million to € 4,016.7 million. Adjusted for disposals made in 2018, the increase amounted to 7.6%. As at December 31, 2019, the order book totaled € 3,573.0 million (2018: € 3,212.4 million). The increase was primarily due to continuing high demand in Asia, especially in the service business. This more than compensated for temporary declines in incoming orders in the Europe/Africa region.

The Rail Vehicle Systems division raised revenues by 5.6% to € 3,656.1 million (2018: € 3,461.9 million). Adjusted for currency effects, revenues increased by 4.1% year on year and were therefore within the forecast. Of this, OE business accounted for around 58% of revenues (2018: 59%) and aftermarket business accounted for 42% of revenues (2018: 41%). The revenue trend is primarily attributable to stronger business in the passenger, freight and regional transportation segments and strong service business in Asia. European OE sales also showed a moderate increase, especially in the regional, commuter and freight segments. Service business in North America showed positive performance.

A 17.6% increase in EBITDA due to factors related to volume and project mixes resulted in a significantly higher EBITDA margin on sales revenues of 22.3% in fiscal 2019 compared with 20.0% in 2018 (previous year’s operating EBITDA margin adjusted for divested companies: 20.8%). Thus the margin achieved was also well above the forecast range.

In 2019, the Rail Vehicle Systems division’s EBIT grew significantly by 19.0% to € 696.7 million (2018: € 585.2 million). As a result, the EBIT margin of 16.9% (or 18.2% after adjustment for divested companies) also appreciably increased to 19.1%. The IFRS 16 effects included in the 2019 report come to € 33.4 million for EBITDA and € 4.9 million for EBIT.

The Rail Vehicle Systems division’s capital expenditure of € 120.9 million in 2019 (2018: € 113.4 million) focused primarily on capacity expansion and automation, and also on projects to replace and upgrade production facilities and improve their efficiency. Capital spending of € 33.2 million at the Munich site, made as part of the 2019 “north sector” SLB (sale-and-lease-back transaction), was deducted from capital expenditure as a result of the sale and consequently eliminated. At € 118.2 million, depreciation and amortization was moderately up on the previous year (2018: € 107.9 million).

R&D costs in 2019 came to € 210.0 million, representing a € 12.9 million or 6.5% increase on the previous year (2018: € 197.1 million). This resulted in an R&D ratio of 5.7% (2018: 5.7%), thus remaining constant year on year. Development activities concentrated on solutions for increasing transportation capacity, availability and eco-friendliness, and reducing life cycle costs. Efforts centered above all on automated train operation (ATO), eco-design and product digitalization.

As at December 31, 2019, the Rail Vehicle Systems division had 16,094 employees (2018: 15,886 employees including temporary staff). The increased year-end headcount is primarily due to high revenue growth.

¹) Adjusted for Munich headquarters “north sector” SLB (€33.2 million)

Commercial Vehicle Systems Division

The Commercial Vehicle Systems division recorded a -4.9% decline in incoming orders to € 3,050.7 million (2018: € 3,207.8 million) in fiscal 2019. Adjusted for currency and acquisition effects, the decline amounted to -9.1%. The drop in demand for OE business that became evident in the second half of 2019, first in Europe and then in North America, was also reflected in the order book, which fell by -16.8% to € 1,134.2 million as at December 31, 2019 (2018: € 1,363.7 million).

Divisional revenues grew by 3.8% to € 3,280.2 million (2018: € 3,160.1 million). This moderate increase occurred despite a -5.0% decline in global truck production. OE revenue growth in North America in particular compensated for the cyclically induced decline of European sales revenues. Even so, OE customers’ share of the division’s total revenues fell by 0.6 percentage points year on year to 74.3%. This in turn resulted in a higher aftermarket share of total revenues of 25.7% (2018: 25.2%). Furthermore, the acquisition of Hitachi Automotive Systems, Ltd. at the end of March contributed € 65.8 million in revenues for fiscal 2019. Therefore, the division was within the forecast. Adjusted for currency and acquisition effects, revenues were slightly down on the previous year at -0.6%.

In absolute terms, due to lower revenues, EBITDA fell by -2.5% year on year to € 503.7 million with a reported EBITDA margin of 15.4% of revenues compared with 16.3% in the previous year. By contrast, the operating EBITDA margin – that is, adjusted for the Wülfrath restructuring expenses – came to 16.0%, and thus was within the forecast, just 30 basis points below the previous year’s level. With respect to EBIT, the Commercial Vehicle Systems division saw a decline of € -60.6 million (-14.0%) to € 373.8 million in 2019 (2018: € 434.4 million). This in turn caused the reported EBIT margin to decline by 230 basis points to 11.4% (compared with 13.7% in the previous year), so that the operating EBIT margin fell by 140 basis points to 12.3%. This may be ascribed to higher depreciation and amortization, among other things as a result of IFRS 16, the Wülfrath restructuring, and increased capital expenditure due to intensified development and other activity. The IFRS 16 effects included in the 2019 report total € 20.0 million for EBITDA and € 2.3 million for EBIT.

In 2019, the Commercial Vehicle Systems division’s capital expenditure increased by € 24.5 million year on year to € 179.2 million. As in the previous year, major investments were made in the global provision of supplier tools. The year-on-year increase is primarily due to the expansion of manufacturing capacity at our North American sites in Huntington and Bowling Green with the aim of boosting our production of compressed air disk brakes in particular. Increased capital spending and the Wülfrath restructuring project caused depreciation and amortization in the Commercial Vehicles Systems division to rise to € 129.9 million, representing a € 47.9 million increase over the previous year (2018: € 82.0 million).

The division’s R&D costs rose to € 187.0 million in the 2019 fiscal year (2018: € 166.6 million), partly as a result of intensified ADAS/HAD and steering development activity. The resulting R&D ratio also increased from 5.3% in 2018 to 5.7% in 2019. R&D activities focused on key industry trends in road safety, emissions reduction and e-mobility, as well as automated driving and connectivity. At the transport logistic trade fair in Munich in June 2019, Knorr-Bremse TruckServices and Intel subsidiary Mobileye presented a retrofittable Blind Spot Assistant, as well as other integrated driver assistance solutions for heavy commercial vehicles such as lane departure warning, distance monitoring, proximity warning, and predictive collision warning systems. In addition, work continued on developing the next generation of our Synact and Nextt disc brakes.

As at December 31, 2019, the Commercial Vehicle Systems division had 12,084 employees (2018: 11,906), that is, 178 more employees (+1.5%) than on December 31, 2018. This is primarily due to the acquisition of Hitachi Automotive with 404 employees.