58 Business Development
and amortization, which showed significant one-time effects
in the past fiscal year. Overall, personnel expenses remained
at the previous year’s level despite increases in collective bargaining
costs. This was due to temporary short-time work-
ing measures in the months when we experienced a slump
in demand. In addition, there was only very limited re-
cruitment and backfilling of vacancies. The ratio of total personnel
costs to sales increased to 23.4 % (previous year:
22.7 %) on account of the sales decline. However, the consequences
of the pandemic were also reflected in other cost
types: Travel and trade fair costs in particular showed a significant
decrease compared to the previous year, leading
to cost reductions across all functional areas. As part of the
impairment tests for the ECKART division, an impairment
loss of € 85.6 million was identified for the total goodwill in
2020, which was recorded in other operating expenses.
The impairment resulted from an assessment of future business
development that also included various planning
scenarios with probabilities of occurrence due to the overall
economic uncertainty. Compared to our other divisions,
ECKART’s sales and earnings performance was more strongly
affected by flagging demand resulting from the corona
virus pandemic, particularly since the share of business with
automotive and cosmetics customers in the division’s total
sales is significantly higher. Derived from this, the weighted
scenario-based valuation results in a weaker estimate than
in previous years. Adjusted for this impairment effect, depreciation
and amortization was 1 % higher than in the previous
year, due to high investments in property, plant and
equipment in previous years.
In all other functional cost areas, absolute cost reductions
were recorded in the past fiscal year. Within production
costs, personnel costs in particular were below the prior-
year level due to measures taken in connection with shorttime
working due to the decline in demand. In addition,
lower travel costs led to savings. Only depreciation and amor-
Multi-period overview of the earnings situation
Sales (in € million )
2016 2,075
2017 2,247
2018 2,307
2019 2,249
2020 2,178
EBITDA (in € million )
2016 453
2017 470
2018 431
2019 416
2020 426