The car rental company Sixt significantly increased its profit in the second quarter compared to the weak prior-year period.
Pre-tax earnings rose by almost 71 percent to EUR 107.3 million, as the company announced in Pullach.
Sixt was able to increase the proportion of more expensive rental cars and also reduce fleet costs.
A year earlier, a drop in residual values, including for electric cars, had had a negative impact on business. The bottom line in the second quarter was a net profit of EUR 78.4 million, an increase of more than 62 percent.
Turnover grew by a good seven percent overall to 1.08 billion euros.
The average fleet size grew by just under six percent year-on-year in the three months to the end of June.
The management confirmed its forecast for the year as a whole. Sixt aims to increase revenue by 5 to 10 percent compared to the previous year's figure of around EUR 4 billion.
The pre-tax margin is expected to remain at around 10 percent.
However, the Pullach-based company was not quite able to meet the expectations of the stock market.
Experts had expected slightly higher profits.
CFO Franz Weinberger spoke on Wednesday of a record quarter in terms of turnover. However, the provider had only moderately expanded its fleet and the proportion of expensive rental cars was high. "Overall, with increasing macroeconomic uncertainty and decreasing visibility, we are well on track to achieve our targets for the year," said the manager.
Investors let the share fall.
Sixt is also feeling the effects of the current global situation, albeit without major wounds. In view of the high level of uncertainty in the market, the company preferred to plan the fleet in the USA a little more tightly, said CFO Weinberger in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur. In principle, business there is stable, which is also due to the fact that around two thirds of the business is generated directly with Americans. Although sales growth in the USA in the second quarter was lower than in Europe, exchange rate effects due to the weak dollar also contributed to this. However, as the largest car rental market in the world, the USA remains a strategic growth market for Sixt, as Weinberger emphasizes.
A year ago, Sixt had suffered from weak used car prices, which meant that the company earned less when reselling its rental cars. This problem has now largely been solved.
In the first quarter, the last of the affected vehicles had been delivered, said Weinberger. Improved purchasing conditions have also helped. After the shortage on the vehicle market, the situation here is better again, said Weinberger.
