Dear share­hold­ers, busi­ness part­ners and col­leagues,
 

The year 2024 was char­ac­ter­ized by de­mand­ing con­di­tions that pre­sented both our in­dus­try and the global mar­kets with con­sid­er­able chal­lenges. We are there­fore all the more proud that we were able to over­come these chal­lenges to­gether and can look back on a suc­cess­ful fi­nan­cial year.

With sales rev­enue of EUR 476 mil­lion and in­creased earn­ings be­fore in­ter­est and taxes (EBIT) of EUR 42.8 mil­lion, we have once again demon­strated our strength as a full-​range sup­plier of floor­ing sys­tems. The pos­i­tive earn­ings trend is par­tic­u­larly pleas­ing: thanks to tar­geted mea­sures to in­crease ef­fi­ciency, an op­ti­mized ma­te­ri­als usage ratio and im­prove­ments in lo­gis­tics, we were able to in­crease our EBIT by 25% com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year. This progress is the re­sult of hard work and a clear strate­gic focus that keeps us com­pet­i­tive even in a chal­leng­ing mar­ket en­vi­ron­ment.

We would like to thank our 1,500 em­ploy­ees around the world, whose com­mit­ment, ex­per­tise and in­no­v­a­tive spirit have made a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to this suc­cess. Their ded­i­ca­tion and will­ing­ness to con­tin­u­ously adapt to chang­ing con­di­tions are the basis for our com­pany's solid per­for­mance last year.

De­spite all the suc­cesses we have achieved, we are look­ing to the fu­ture with cau­tion. Po­lit­i­cal and reg­u­la­tory re­quire­ments, par­tic­u­larly in the area of sus­tain­abil­ity, will con­tinue to re­quire in­vest­ment and strate­gic ad­just­ments. For us, sus­tain­abil­ity means doing jus­tice to all stake­holder groups in the long term: cus­tomers, in­vestors and em­ploy­ees as well as busi­ness part­ners and so­ci­ety as a whole. Eco­nomic, eco­log­i­cal and so­cial re­spon­si­bil­ity go hand in hand - along the en­tire value chain. The aim is to an­chor sus­tain­abil­ity even more firmly in our op­er­at­ing busi­ness in fu­ture. This is the only way we can achieve long-​term im­prove­ments: from re­duc­ing CO₂ emis­sions to re­spect­ing human rights in the sup­ply chain and in­creas­ing trust in dig­i­tal­iza­tion.

What top­ics are on our agenda for the fu­ture?

We want to take the brand ex­pe­ri­ence for our cus­tomers to the next level. To do this, we are de­sign­ing dig­i­tal, cross-​brand com­mu­ni­ca­tion mea­sures. In ad­di­tion, we are cre­at­ing out­stand­ing prod­uct ex­pe­ri­ences for our cus­tomers across all six brands, such as the UZIN UTZ Cam­pus, which will take place an­nu­ally in fu­ture and at­tract hun­dreds of crafts­men.

In order to fur­ther ex­pand our po­si­tion as a global com­pany, we are on an am­bi­tious growth path. This is prompt­ing us to im­ple­ment a future-​proof or­ga­ni­za­tional model that will meet the re­quire­ments of the next decade.

In 2025, we are also ush­er­ing in the final strate­gic year of Pas­sion 2025. We are fo­cus­ing once again on the goals we have set our­selves and at the same time de­vel­op­ing a new vi­sion for the com­ing years.

The de­vel­op­ment of in­no­v­a­tive prod­ucts is run­ning at full speed. For ex­am­ple, the new di­men­sion of our lev­el­ing com­pounds, UZIN Fu­sion­Tec, has made a start. This pi­o­neer­ing binder tech­nol­ogy paves the way for fur­ther state-​of-the-art lev­el­ing com­pounds and thin screeds.  We have also set new stan­dards and made strate­gic progress across our other prod­uct brands. These are all pre­req­ui­sites for dri­ving for­ward the prof­itable fu­ture of UZIN UTZ.

We are con­fi­dent that the ex­pected re­cov­ery in the con­struc­tion in­dus­try and the emerg­ing eas­ing of in­fla­tion rates and fi­nanc­ing con­di­tions will pro­vide pos­i­tive im­pe­tus for our 2025 fi­nan­cial year.

With your trust and sup­port, we look for­ward to the fu­ture and look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to shape the suc­cess of our com­pany to­gether. 

Best re­gards

Chris­t­ian Richter, Ju­lian Utz, Philipp Utz