Fresenius Medical Care: Dividend surprise!

The dialysis specialist Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) has presented its figures for the past fiscal year 2024. The savings program launched in particular had an impact and investors are set to receive a significantly higher dividend. With a view to the 2025 fiscal year, company boss Helen Giza is aiming for further increasing margins.

In the current financial year, the CEO and her team want to further boost the result adjusted for special effects; the figure is expected to rise in the high 10 to 20 percent range and the operating margin to 11 to 12 percent. CEO Giza is increasing her target for the savings program that will run until the end of the year from 650 to 750 million euros. FMC has achieved significant savings earlier than planned, said Giza.

As a result, the operating result adjusted for currency and special effects increased by 18 percent to just over 1.81 billion euros last year compared to the previous year. FMC thus met analyst expectations and its own profit targets, which management had raised in November. The bottom line is that profit attributable to shareholders rose nominally by eight million euros to 538 million euros. FMC wants to increase the dividend by 21 percent to 1.44 euros per share, which results in a current dividend yield of a respectable 3.2 percent. Analysts, however, had only expected a payout of 1.20 euros per share.

However, sales fell by one percent to 19.34 billion euros in 2024 and stagnated after adjusting for currency effects, as FMC had suffered from increased corona-related mortality among dialysis patients for a long time last year. In 2025, adjusted revenue is now expected to increase in the low single-digit percentage range.

Contains material from dpa-AFX