The VW commercial vehicle holding company Traton has almost doubled its operating result thanks to progress at its subsidiary MAN and has exceeded its own expectations. Last year, turnover soared by 16 percent to a record 46.9 billion euros, while adjusted operating profit improved to 4.03 (2022: 2.07) billion euros, as the truck and bus manufacturer announced in Munich on Tuesday. At 8.6 (5.1) percent, the adjusted operating return on sales was even higher than the forecast, which had been raised twice and most recently stood at 7.5 to 8.5 percent. This reflected improved capacity utilization.

Shareholders should also benefit from this: At EUR 1.50 (0.70) per share, the dividend is set to be more than twice as high as in 2022. This means that the majority shareholder Volkswagen alone will receive a good EUR 670 million.

In view of the weakening truck market, CEO Christian Levin believes that a drop of up to five percent in unit sales and turnover is possible for the current year, but also an increase of ten percent. The adjusted operating margin should be between eight and nine percent. "In a generally weakening market environment for trucks in some regions, we will work very hard in 2024 to bring our strength to bear," said Levin. The Scania, MAN and Navistar brands will have to grow even closer together in order to exploit efficiency advantages. "We are also supported by the strong order book, which is already full for the first half of the year."

Last year, incoming orders shrank by 21 percent to just under 265,000 trucks and buses, while sales figures rose by 16 percent to a good 338,000. The Swedish Scania remained Traton's flagship, improving its return on sales to 12.7 (8.6) percent. However, MAN made the biggest leap with a return of 7.3 (1.3) percent. The most recent acquisition, the US brand Navistar, achieved 6.6 (4.7) percent.

(Report by Alexander Hübner, edited by Ralf Banser. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)