BUSSNANG, Switzerland — Flooding that affected production at plants in three countries delayed completion of almost $400 million in orders, resulting in a significant drop in earnings for Swiss-based rail equipment manufacturer Stadler, the company said in announcing annual financial results on Wednesday, March 19.
Still the company continued to gain orders, increasing its order backlog to 29.2 billion Swiss francs, or more than $33 billion.
“Stadler continues to operate successfully and is winning many orders,” Group CEO Markus Bernsteiner said in a press release. “Our order intake has developed extremely well in 2024.”
Severe floods at Valais, Switzerland; Dürnrohr, Austria; and Valencia, Spain, led to “massive delays and interruptions in production and affected supply chains,” the company said. This postponed some 350 million Swiss francs in orders from the 2024 financial year to 2025 or 2026, reducing the company’s Earnings Before Interest and Taxes to 3.1%, two points lower than the previous year. Group profits were 55 million Swiss francs ($62.2 million), down from 138.6 million francs ($156.8 million) the prior year.
The company still delivered about 500 rail vehicles last year and is working on some 360 orders. The 2024 sales of 3.3 billion Swiss francs ($3.7 billion) were down about 10% from 2023, mainly because of the flood issues.
Among the impacts of the flooding: 850 tons of the 1,200 bound for Stadler stored at the plant of aluminum suppler Constellium had to be disposed of. While some production was shifted to a Constellium plant in Germany, full recovery is not anticipated until August 2025. At Dürnrohr, a dam burst, flooding a Stadler facility for new KISS trains for Austria’s ÖBB and destroying one train. And at Valencia — where a massive flood resulted in more than 220 fatalities — damage to some Stadler facilities, and those of about 40 suppliers — resulted in the loss of about 200,000 production hours. Delivery delays of one to five months are now expected for approximately 50 orders.
Stadler’s growth in the U.S. has led the company to create a separate North American division as of Jan. 1 [see “Stadler makes US operations …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 3, 2024]. For 2024, key developments in the U.S. included a $500 million order from Atlanta’s MARTA for Communications-Based Train Control; this accounted for most of the rise in the company’s Signaling sector to 520 million Swiss francs ($588.4 million) from 56 million francs ($63.4 million) the previous year. The company also received its first U.S. order for light rail equipment, for 80 Citylink streetcars for Salt Lake City, where the company has its American factory.
Other major orders in 2024 included 10 intercity trains for Saudi Arabia, the company’s first contract there; 65 FLIRT trains for Poland; 129 battery-diesel locomotives for Switzerland’s SBB Cargo; and 12 battery-electric locomotives for maintenance and construction work on the Paris metro network.
Wisely experienced and always strong at 83 years old, Stadler Rail of Switzerland hardly disappoints its customers.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün