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Liebherr posts healthy results for 2013

The Liebherr Group says that its results for 2013 equal that of the previous year, despite a weak economic climate. The company expects turnover to hit €9.086 billion, while its workforce has grown to 39,670. Despite the conditions, Liebherr has invested more than €800 million in its operations, taking a view that market conditions will improve in the long term and that developing the company further will lead to future gains. The overall economic situation did not improve in 2013 however and according to
December 18, 2013 Read time: 3 mins
The 718 Liebherr Group says that its results for 2013 equal that of the previous year, despite a weak economic climate. The company expects turnover to hit €9.086 billion, while its workforce has grown to 39,670. Despite the conditions, Liebherr has invested more than €800 million in its operations, taking a view that market conditions will improve in the long term and that developing the company further will lead to future gains.

The overall economic situation did not improve in 2013 however and according to current forecasts, the global economy will grow by just under 3% and global production probably by 3.1 %. According to 4048 World Trade Organisation (WTO) forecasts, international trade will increase by just 2.5%.

A slight downturn is anticipated in the construction machinery and mining area, where turnover according to current forecasts will be in the region of €5.62 billion, just €, 249 million (about 4%) lower than in 2012. The Liebherr Group’s construction machinery and mining area includes the earthmoving, mobile cranes, tower cranes, concrete technology and mining divisions.

Construction of a new logistics centre for Liebherr-Logistics GmbH near Kirchdorf an der Iller in Germany is of note. It will be used initially to supply spare parts for Liebherr earthmoving machinery worldwide. In the long term it is planned to transfer spare part logistics for further construction machinery divisions to this location. After the first construction phase the building will cover an area of more than 47,000m² and will go into operation in the first quarter of 2015. Investment volume for the first phase amounts to more than €100 million. When the centre is completed, Liebherr will have a 360,000m² site with hall space of around 170,000m² and 4,500m² of office space.

Another major project is investment in extending the premises of Liebherr-Australia at its Adelaide location, with extra warehousing, a logistics centre and a component remanufacturing centre to be added.

In Colmar (France) a new factory covering an area of 50,000 m² has been built. The components division will operate it as a research and development centre and for the production of mining components.

A new production building with adjacent administrative building has been added to the Liebherr production plant for hydraulic excavators, wheel loaders, material handling machines and transmissions at Dalian in China. It is intended to increase the production capacity of Liebherr units for the Chinese market and for various other threshold countries.

Despite gradual recovery in the highly developed national economies, only moderate global economic growth is anticipated: the 3684 International Monetary Fund assumes that growth will be 3.6%. The Liebherr Group expects total turnover for 2014 to be similar to that of 2013.

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