June 27, 2014 | Ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR
Top ranking in “CEO of the Year” comparison reflects continuity and strong performance
Burckhardt Compression added another successful chapter to its long corporate history with its record order intake of CHF 517.1 million in the fiscal year 2013. This achievement has now been underscored by the company’s third-place ranking in the annual “CEO of the Year” rankings compiled by Obermatt. Marcel Pawlicek – the CEO of Burckhardt Compression and an avid entrepreneur and engineer at heart – looks back on a 36-year career at Burckhardt that symbolizes continuity and the constant pursuit of improvement. These two factors have been significant drivers of Burckhardt Compression’s stellar performance.
Operating performance, investment performance and growth performance were the key financial indicators that earned Marcel Pawlicek, the CEO of Burckhardt Compression, a position at the top of the “CEO of the Year” rankings. Dr. Hermann J. Stern, the CEO of Obermatt, a financial research company that has published these annual CEO assessments since 2006, summarizes the high ranking as follows: “Burckhardt Compression AG has displayed a particularly strong and consistent performance in the share price and operating metrics.” The rankings are determined in a relative comparison to comparable competitors. The methodology it uses explicitly measures the outperformance a company has achieved versus its peers on the basis of hard financial data. In the “Mid-sized Companies” category, which includes all companies with annual sales of CHF 100 million to CHF 2 billion listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange, Burckhardt Compression’s CEO Pawlicek was ranked third.
Top rankings for growth, dividend and share price returns
“We focus on everything we do. For example, the clear focus on our core business of reciprocating compressors, or on our five market segments or the continual pursuit of improvement. Our employees make a difference too; it’s important that they know where we want to go,” says Marcel Pawlicek in explaining the company’s formula for success. The steadfast pursuit of world leadership in reciprocating compressors ever since the management buyout in 2002 has produced tangible rewards. Burckhardt Compression’s order intake of CHF 517.1 million in the fiscal year 2013 (closing March 31, 2014) was the highest in the company’s history. New orders topped the previous year’s high intake by 20.9% (22.8% at constant exchange rates). This positive course of business is reflected in the latest Obermatt rankings. In the Growth Performance Indicator, Burckhardt Compression achieved a ranking of 85, with the best possible score being 100. This indexed percentile value indicates the percentage of comparable competitors that were outperformed in terms of growth. Burckhardt Compression therefore belongs to the best of the best Swiss companies when it comes to this performance indicator. Its dividend ranking of 79 and share price performance ranking of 91 out of 100 also earned Burckhardt Compression a position at the top end of the overall rankings.
Firmly dedicated to Swiss manufacturing
Marcel Pawlicek has played a hand in writing Burckhardt Compression’s history and advancing reciprocating compressor technology for the past 36 years. What began for him as a machinery draftsman apprenticeship 36 years ago has become a prominent chapter in the history of Burckhardt Compression. A key moment came in 2002 when the then Sulzer-Burckhardt subsidiary was spun off by its parent company and Marcel Pawlicek – at the time Vice President CSS (Components, Services & Support) – reaffirmed his dedication to the reciprocating compressor business. He participated in the management buyout transaction and in the years that followed he and his fellow executives together with the then CEO and current Chairman Valentin Vogt have established a consistent track record of success for Burckhardt Compression. Since April 2011 the machine draftsman and engineer has led the company’s operating activities as CEO.
