No recommendation
No news or research item is a personal recommendation to deal. Hargreaves Lansdown may not share ShareCast's (powered by Digital Look) views.
(Sharecast News) - Swiss hearing care specialist Sonova pleased the market with the release of its full-year results on Friday, with turnover beating forecasts, as investors shrugged off the news that its long-running chief executive is to leave.
Arnd Kaldowski, which joined Sonova in 2017 as chief operating officer and became CEO a year later, is to step down in September due to "personal reasons", the company said.
Eric Bernard, former boss of hearing aids maker WS Audiology, is to join this summer as Kaldowski's successor.
"We are pleased to report a solid performance overall and an accelerating momentum, achieving above-market growth across all four businesses in the second half," Kaldowski said.
Sales for the 2024/25 financial year totalled CHF3.87bn, up 7.6% in local currencies, though just 6.6% higher in Swiss francs due to unfavourable exchange rate movements.
Organic growth came in at 6.4%, ahead of the 5.9% increase expected by the market, with results showing market share gains across all four businesses in the second half.
Growth picked up in the second half, helped by the launch of the Infinio and Sphere Infinio platforms in August, supporting growth in the Hearing Instruments and Audiological Care businesses.
However, a slowdown in the US private hearing aid market in the final months of the year hampered overall development, Sonova said.
Adjusted EBITDA rose by 7.4% to CHF808m, despite the adjusted EBITDA margin slipping to 20.9% from 21.3%.
"Building on this sales momentum and benefiting from the measures undertaken to enhance productivity and improve our cost structure, we are entering the new financial year from a position of strength, which positions us well to address the market challenges arising from uncertainties related to the current macroeconomic environment."
Shares were 3.2% higher at CHF261.5p by 1238 in Zurich.