Business was going well, but the prospects were clouding over: after the highest annual sales in the company’s history, the engine manufacturer Deutz is preparing for falling demand.
After strong sales growth, the weakening economy is now causing problems for the engine manufacturer Deutz. As the company in Cologne announced, the order backlog at the end of 2023 was around 463 million euros, around 40 percent lower than a year earlier.
Deutz was able to make gains last year: sales grew by almost eight percent to a good 2.1 billion euros – more than ever before in the company’s history. Group profit rose by 2.1 percent to almost 82 million euros.
For 2024, company boss Sebastian Schulte is forecasting sales in the range of 1.9 to 2.1 billion euros – so there will probably be less money in the till than in the previous year. The number of engines sold – sales – is also expected to fall.
Deutz produces combustion engines for construction and agricultural machinery, such as forklifts, tractors, excavators and lifting platforms. A few years ago it took over the electric motor specialist Torqeedo, but recently sold it again. The figures now published show that the Torqeedo business was highly loss-making. According to its own information, Deutz employs around 5,300 people, around 3,000 of them in Cologne.
Source: Stern
