The CEO of train maker Stadler Rail tried to reassure markets Thursday, promising the company would recover from disruptions caused by flooding in Europe and supply chain problems that led the company to suspend its outlook.
Swiss-listed shares were down 11% at 1138 GMT in response to the company’s withdrawal of its outlook for 2025 and 2026 after market close on Wednesday. It had lost as much as 16.2% earlier on Thursday.
“During the 2021 pandemic, we were unable to deliver 130 trains due to supply chain disruptions and travel restrictions,” CEO Markus Bernsteiner said at a press conference with analysts and the media.
“We recovered in 2022. This shows that we can overcome this type of situation. We will do it again.”
After deadly floods hit Spain last month, the company’s factory in Valencia was not directly affected, but around 30 of its suppliers in the region were, the CEO said.
As a result, between 150,000 and 200,000 hours of production at the Valencia plant will be postponed from this year to 2025, he said, adding that the scale of the problem was unclear.
A Constellium factory in Switzerland, which supplies aluminum parts, was also hit by a storm in June, meaning deliveries are expected to be delayed until August next year.
In September, flooding at a site in Lower Austria destroyed a train, Bernsteiner said, adding that measures were taken to resume production as quickly as possible in all cases.
Supply chain issues related to the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine have meant that 376 of a possible 1,500 subway cars have been ordered so far under a 2019 framework contract with the Berlin’s transport authority, Mr. Bernsteiner said, led to underproduction at factories.
Chief Financial Officer Raphael Widmer said Stadler’s core profit margin for the year would be at least two percentage points lower than the previous forecast of 5%.
The company plans to release new forecasts for 2025 and 2026 in the first quarter of next year.
Last year, Stadler had sales of 3.6 billion Swiss francs ($4.04 billion), compared to nearly 10.6 billion euros ($11.14 billion) for the The train manufacturing business of Siemens AG.
(1 dollar = 0.8902 Swiss francs)
(1 $ = 0,9511 euros)
