display

Landsberg Am Lech (dpa) - The corona pandemic is continuing to slow down the business of the commercial kitchen supplier Rational.

The company reiterated its cautious forecast for the full year due to the recent tightening of measures.

"The negative effects of the coronavirus on the global economy and the food service industry will continue to accompany us in 2021," wrote CEO Peter Stadelmann in the annual report for the past year on Wednesday.

The group management is assuming "that the existing restrictions on our customers will remain at least partially in 2021, but will not be tightened further," added Stadelmann.

However, the progress made in vaccine development gives hope that an “extensive return to normal” will be possible in the second half of the year.

Rational therefore continues to expect to be able to increase its sales and earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) slightly in 2021.

"We are currently assuming sales growth in the mid-single-digit percentage range," says Stadelmann.

display

At least for the first three months, however, Rational is preparing for a hangover: a drop in sales of almost ten percent compared to the previous year is planned.

But this is already a positive development, as sales in the first two months of 2020 were still at a high pre-crisis level, emphasized Stadelmann.

In the past year, the pandemic Rational played badly: As already known since February, sales had decreased by 23 percent to 650 million euros.

In terms of earnings, the MDax group had to accept significant losses: The bottom line was that the profit was more than halved to around 80 million euros.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210324-99-948376 / 3