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Interviews
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The Villeroy-&-Boch-board is many a time concerned
about the problemfinding new installation technicians.
Why?
This will affect us much more than the often-quoted
dying of the specialized retail sector – in meaning of
the distribution points - in the longer term, because
the customers will just purchase elsewhere, e.g. via
internet where we can record enormous turnovers. But
if you can hardly find craftsmen who are installing our
products, our growth will be limited.
Do you still have a local bank?
We do not have a local bank in its original sense, but
a financing group to which more than 10 banks are
belonging. Actually, we are using the services of these
institutes for several tasks, e. g. for processing the
payment in certain regions.
How Villeroy is financed?
With 26 % equity and 74% outside capital, hereby the
biggest position are our pension liabilities. Two classical
bank credits of 25 million Euro each and 5-year maturity
are included to the outside capital. The one redemption
is due in 2019, the second one year later. After the latest
refinancing the effective interest rate is - on average -
below 2 % per year.
Have you ever thought about other types of financing
than bank credits?
Sure, e.g. bonded loans, bonds andUSPrivatePlacement.
We will be prepared for such types of financing if there
is shown their advantageousness, but this is not the
case so far. For example, for our classical bank credits
we need not to give guarantees. Also for our peakcash-
demand of about 30 million Euro in the second quarter
of a year which is caused by the
payment of dividends and employee bonuses, we get
along with the current credit lines. Furthermore, we
don’t have the complicated structures of other financing
models with our credits.
How high is the net debt per December 31, 2015?
Zero. Actually, we had 65.6 million Euro cash on year
end and so a net liquidity of 15 million Euro.
Do you pay negative interest rates on your deposits or
have you paid them?
No one has dared to request that till now.
And if any bank did so?
Then it would have the choice: either renounce the
negative interest rate or to loose us as customer.
Villeroy is the same as the 1. FC Nürnberg to the first
federal soccer league of Germany: Constantly one is
ascend and relegated. Actually, your shares are not
listed in the SDAX, the German Small Cap Index. How
important is the membership in the Small-Cap-Index
for you
?
We are pleased to join the membership to the SDAX.
But it is not a catastrophe, when we are not taking
part. For us, it is obvious that institutional investors
have investment principles which make it difficult to
invest in shares of companies with relatively low stock
market-liquidity. Through this, the market turnover
of our shares – that is the criterion to that our SDAX-
membership fails – remains rather low.
Personal information
Hamburg boy’
Dr. Markus Warncke is a family man. The 46 year old
man spends his little leisure time which is concentrated
on parts of the weekend and holidays, with his female
partner and his two kids (5 and 7 years old), e. g. with
sailing. His close relationship to this sport is probably
caused by his origin, the native of Hamburg is joking
during the interview with Börsen-Zeitung who is
therefore, respecting soccer, sympathizing with the HSV,
the Hamburg Soccer Team.
Warncke studied at Essen and Düsseldorf (final grade:
MBA diploma ) and acquired a doctorate in business
administration at the university of Erlangen. His
professional career startedwithDaimler Benz at Stuttgart
in 1996. Since 2001, Warncke is working for Villeroy &
Boch. To 2005, he led the segments corporate audit and
M&A, then he was responsible for the financing – among
others - of the segment Wellness & Fittings until 2007.
After further stages as Head of Group-Treasury (until
2011) as well as Group Financial Controller, Warncke
has been appointed to Head of Finance in spring 2014.
The appointment to the Management Board was made
in January 2015. Besides Financing he is responsible for
controlling, taxes, IT, purchase, real estate and audit.
Before being promoted to CFO, Dr. Warncke was a
member of the IAFEI International Working Committee
Treasury.
from Börsen-Zeitung, Frankfurt am Main, Germany,
March 12, 2016.
Responsible for translation: GEFIU, the Association of
Chief Financial Officers Germany, translator: Helmut
Schnabel