Henkel announced its 2011 financial figures, with sales and earnings coming in at record levels. The company recorded a sales increase of 3.4% to €15,605 million (an organic increase of 5.9%) and an adjusted operating profit increase of 9% to €2,029 million. Henkel also reported a double-digit increase in emerging markets, with organic growth up 10.8%, and all the company’s business sectors contributed to this positive development, further expanding their shares in the relevant markets. Specifically for the company’s cosmetics/toiletries business division, Henkel continued its strong growth trend of recent years and, with organic sales growth of 5.4%, grew significantly stronger than the predominantly declining market.
“2011 was another very successful year for Henkel. Despite major challenges in a volatile economic environment, we fully achieved our ambitious targets—and even overdelivered on some of them. Sales and profits are higher than ever before,” said Henkel CEO Kasper Rorsted. “A major factor driving Henkel’s strong performance was the further expansion of our position in the emerging markets, where we once again registered double-digit growth. We made considerable progress in 2011, establishing a strong platform for Henkel’s future. Thus, we are very confident of achieving the targets for fiscal 2012 that we set in 2008.”
For the fiscal year 2012, Rorsted provided the following guidance, “The economic environment remains challenging. It is significantly more volatile today than in the past. As a consequence we need to constantly adapt in order to respond quickly and flexibly to changes in our markets. However, we consider Henkel to be well-positioned. We expect organic sales growth for the full fiscal year to be between 3–5%. We also expect to increase our adjusted EBIT margin to 14% and improve adjusted earnings per preferred share by at least 10%.”
More information on this financial report is available from Henkel.
