“We have made a good solid start to the new financial year,” said Professor Dr Wolfgang Reitzle, CEO of Linde AG. “Despite less-than-favourable conditions, especially in the mature markets, we have continued to achieve profitable growth.”
Linde was able to increase group operating profit by 12.6% to €953 million (2012: € 846 million). As a result, the Group operating margin rose to 23.9% (2012: 23.4%).
In the Engineering Division, the first quarter of 2013 was characterised by a number of significant new orders. There was a substantial increase in order intake to €1.379 billion in the first three months of 2013, 81.7% higher than the figure for the first three months of 2012 of € 759 million.
“We expect to achieve further increases over the coming months and we confirm our outlook,” Reitzle said. “We want to generate higher group revenue in 2013 than in 2012 and to achieve our target for group operating profit for the current year of € 4 billion.”
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