Net income for the first three months of 2002 was Euro 4.6 million (U.S. $4.3 million), up from Euro 3.4 million during the same period a year earlier. Sales rose 13.1 percent to Euro 265.7 million.
The Mannheim, Germany, company said that 10.8 percent of the sales growth was external, mostly the result of the year-end dissolution of Fuchs DEA Schmierstoffe. Fuchs terminated the three-year-old partnership with German oil company RWE-DEA after DEA agreed to enter a downstream German joint venture with Deutsche Shell GmbH.
Fuchs DEA, which has been renamed Fuchs Europe Schmierstoffe, had Euro 250 million in annual sales in 2001, mostly in Germany.
The partnership was a good project for us and we had not intended for it to end, spokesman Hubertus Staerk said, but the consolidation of ownership has worked out well for us.
In addition to higher sales, the companys bottom line benefited from reduced costs and greater gross margins, which widened from 6.7 percent during the first quarter of 2001 to 7.3 percent during the first quarter of 2002.
On a percentage basis, profits grew fastest in Asia and Africa, although the company also cited progress in Western and Central Europe. Worldwide, Fuchs employs 4,145 people, up from 3,952 a year earlier.