JENA (dpa-AFX) - The medical technology group Carl Zeiss Meditec expects its results to stabilize following a decline in profits in the past fiscal year. However, the ongoing destocking in China will have a negative impact on development, particularly in the first half of the year. In the medium term, the company is confident and intends to increase returns again.

Investors reacted positively despite the mixed figures. The shares of the MDax-listed company climbed by around ten percent on Tuesday morning, before the price fell back again slightly. By midday, the gain was still 8.5 percent, putting the medical technology manufacturer at the top of the list of winners in the virtually unchanged index of medium-sized stocks. Although the latest business figures were not convincing, the market focused more on the outlook.

According to traders, this was better than recently feared. However, expert Anchal Verma from the US bank JPMorgan assessed it as weak. The past financial year had also failed to meet expectations. With regard to the share price gains, the expert pointed to a rather high ratio of short-selling shares in the stock. Possible covering purchases by "short sellers" were able to support the price initially, but the duration is questionable, she estimates.

Carl Zeiss Meditec is forecasting earnings before interest and taxes for the new financial year 2023/24 (as at the end of September) at around the same level as the previous year. The ongoing reduction of inventories in China will have a negative impact on development, as the Thuringian company announced. During the pandemic, Carl Zeiss Meditec had significantly increased its stocks of consumables for refractive laser surgery - i.e. laser vision correction - in order to be able to deliver. The Group now has to reduce its stocks again.

In its nine-month figures, the Group had therefore already announced that a "temporarily significant" burden was to be expected in the first half of the new 2023/24 financial year. EBIT and the corresponding margin should then grow again in the second half of the financial year compared to the same period of the previous year, the company explained when presenting its annual figures. In the medium term, Carl Zeiss Meditec aims to "sustainably stabilize the EBIT margin above 20 percent". The Group was thus somewhat more positive than recently.

CEO Markus Weber sees the prospects for the new fiscal year as fundamentally positive, with the long-term development trends continuing despite increased uncertainty. There is still a high demand worldwide for the treatment of common diseases such as short-sightedness and cataracts. Despite a somewhat slower pace in China, sales growth for the entire 2023/24 financial year is expected to be at least in line with market growth.

In the past financial year, the Group reached the two billion euro turnover mark for the first time. High demand for lasers, intraocular lenses and surgical microscopes led to an increase in turnover of around ten percent to just under 2.1 billion euros, the Thuringian company reported.

However, EBIT fell from 397 million euros to 348 million euros. The Group explains the decline by, among other things, a less favorable product mix and investments. In the previous year, the company had benefited from high deliveries of surgical consumables to China - as a safety stock for possible pandemic-related supply shortfalls. At 16.7%, the EBIT margin was significantly lower than in the previous year (20.9%) and therefore fell short of the lower end of the forecast range of 17% to 20%. Adjusted for special effects, the company achieved 17.4%. The Group result fell slightly from 296 to 292 million euros. This was mainly due to positive effects from currency transactions. Many companies use these to hedge against exchange rate fluctuations. Carl Zeiss Meditec intends to pay its shareholders an unchanged dividend of EUR 1.10 per share.

As of the balance sheet date at the end of September 2023, the Group had just under 4,800 employees, almost exactly 600 more than a year earlier. Carl Zeiss Meditec specializes in lasers, lenses and surgical microscopes for the treatment of eye diseases./lfi/nas/stk