BMW Results Just Mahvalous

FRANKFURT, March 11 Reuters has reported that German luxury car maker BMW AG posted a record rise in profit in 2001 on Monday, broadly in line with market expectations, and said it anticipated further growth this year.

The results put BMW way ahead of mass market car makers who suffered last year as recessions in Germany and the United States hit car sales. BMW says it has maintained its profitability by concentrating on high-margin, luxury niches.

``The year 2001 was by far the most successful in the corporate history of the BMW Group,'' the Bavarian-based car maker said in a statement following a supervisory board meeting.

Pre-tax profit rose 59.5 percent to 3.242 billion euros ($2.8 billion), expressed according to International Accounting Standards (IAS) which the company adopts this year.

``We also expect that in 2002 BMW's (business) will continue in a positive trend and therefore assume a significant improvement in the key figures,'' outgoing BMW Chief Executive Joachim Milberg said in a statement.

The firm's motorbike unit, which only accounts for three percent of revenues, saw its profitability rocket by nearly 79 percent while profits from the key automobile segment rose a more sedate 2.2 percent to 2.792 billion euros.

The firm had already released figures which showed strong sales growth of 7.1 percent but revealed a dent in the last quarter. It said it would propose a dividend of 0.52 euros per ordinary share, up from 0.46 the previous year.

``We don't have a great deal of outlook in the statement, but I still think out of all the companies they've probably got one of the better product pipelines coming through,'' said Xavier Gunner, an auto sector analyst at UBS Warburg in London.

``People had been hoping the auto market in Q4 would be slightly better than it was,'' Gunner added.

NEW CFO NAMED

The firm also named Stefan Krause as its next chief financial officer, to replace Helmut Panke who becomes chief executive in May. Krause was BMW's head of sales in Europe excluding Germany until his appointment.

BMW shares were trading 0.23 percent lower at 44.25 euros by 1713 GMT, in line with the Dow Jones Stoxx European auto index which was 0.26 percent down.

Expressed according to German accounting standards, known as HGB, the pre-tax profit rose 65.2 percent to 2.748 billion euros, slightly lower than an average estimate of 2.781 billion euros from a Reuters poll of 17 analysts last week.

The difference in profit figures between HGB and IAS standards is largely due to the different ways in which investment in development must be accounted for. Most analysts have welcomed the shift to IAS, which is considered to be more transparent.