With the beginning of the war in the Ukraine, the Franconian Leoni Group closed its two plants in the cities of Stryji and Kolomyja.

And because the wiring systems were now missing, which were manufactured in the western Ukrainian Leoni factories by around 7,000 employees, a number of assembly lines in the car plants of Volkswagen, BMW & Co. stood still.

In the meantime, production in both Leoni plants has "started again under the strictest safety regulations and to a limited extent," the automotive supplier announced on Wednesday.

"It is impressive and moving at the same time to feel in the video call how determined our employees are not to let themselves be defeated," said CEO Aldo Kamper at the balance sheet press conference.

Henning Peitsmeier

Business correspondent in Munich.

  • Follow I follow

As Kamper explained, the Ukrainian workforce works under dramatic circumstances.

There are also rocket hits and regular air raids in the vicinity of Stryji and Kolomyja: "Time and again, our employees have to go to the air raid shelter and wait there for several hours at low temperatures before going back to work."

As of this week, Leoni has been preparing for a second shift so that around two thirds of the installed capacity can be produced again.

Some employees had volunteered for military service, some women had fled to Romania with their children, said Kamper.

"People want to work voluntarily, that's their contribution to the war, the willingness is extremely high."

"We make the impossible possible"

Leoni is currently working with the car manufacturers to mitigate the consequences of the production losses in the Ukrainian plants.

According to Kamper, a flexibly set up task force takes care of it "almost around the clock" to constantly re-analyze the dynamic development on site.

Other locations in the Leoni production network have started to duplicate Ukrainian production capacities.

"We make the impossible possible," said the 51-year-old Dutchman, "inside and outside of Ukraine."

Leoni's wiring systems are in greater demand than ever in the automotive industry these days.

The supplier company from Nuremberg has most of its plants in Europe, around 10 percent of the production capacity is in the Ukraine.

The reduced volumes there are unlikely to be compensated for in the course of the year either, and business in Russia has been hit by sanctions.

According to the board of directors, the indirect effects such as the production interruptions of the car manufacturers and suppliers cannot yet be estimated either.

The designated CFO Harald Nippel expects sales and the operating result to be worse than last forecast.

So far, the Management Board had expected sales of a little more than 5 billion euros for this year and earnings before interest and taxes adjusted for special effects in the mid double-digit million range.

Last year, Leoni increased its sales by almost a quarter to 5.1 billion euros, the consolidated loss was reduced from 330 to 48 million.