By Sabine Siebold and Anneli Palmen
DUESSELDORF (Reuters) – German arms maker Rheinmetall had a record 12 months in 2022 and is approaching an order backlog of 30 billion euros, CEO Armin Papperger told Reuters in an interview.
“In 2022, we had a superb 12 months, a record 12 months,” he said, saying that the fourth quarter would even beat good third quarter results.
“We’re approaching an order backlog of 30 billion euros, and I expect to see an order backlog of 40 billion euros next 12 months,” said the CEO of the corporate, which sells a complete range of defence products but might be most famous for supplying the 120mm gun of the Leopard 2 tank.
Papperger said he expected to see a minimum of 15% to twenty% growth in Rheinmetall’s defence division over the approaching years, with the civilian business prone to account for less than 20% of sales in 2025.
On Tuesday, Papperger had nudged up the group’s mid-term sales outlook in anticipation of a windfall from higher defence spending because of the war in Ukraine.
Rheinmetall expects sales to grow to 11 billion-12 billion euros ($12 billion -$13 billion) in 2025, he told German magazine Stern.
The projection is higher than the ten billion-11 billion euro range Rheinmetall gave during its capital markets day in November. For 2022, the corporate expects 6.5 billion euros in sales.
Rheinmetall is seen as a powerful candidate for moving up into Germany’s fundamental stock index DAX.
(Reporting by Sabine Siebold; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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