KE Fibertec achieves impressive result in a year of unrest  

by CEO Carsten Jespersen, KE Fibertec AS

Looking back on the past year
After a quiet end to 2023 and a sluggish start to 2024, KE Fibertec has been extremely busy and has landed one of the best results in the company's history. The profit for 2024 ended at just over 22 M DKK before tax and just under 17 M DKK after tax, which is a very satisfactory result. It was literally five minutes to midnight when we received a number of large orders from the US market in February 2024. Otherwise, we would have had to implement a major round of redundancies among our production staff, says CEO Carsten Jespersen. Fortunately, this was not necessary, and since the third quarter, we have needed all the resources we could find. We have just welcomed five new colleagues in Denmark.

Growth has been driven in particular by strong development in the US market, where we have supplied a number of battery factories for electric cars, among other things. Both our own sales company, KE Fibertec NA, and our acquired factory, ADC in Wisconsin, have performed well in 2024.

Expectations for 2025
Overall, we remain very positive about developments in the coming years, and our revenue for the first quarter of 2025 supports this with a 31% increase compared to the poor first quarter of 2024. Our significant exposure to the US market naturally gives rise to a number of considerations, but fortunately we have our own production facility in the US, Carsten Jespersen continues. We launched a major integration process in 2024, during which the entire organisation in both Denmark and the US worked hard to upgrade our setup so that we now operate in the same ERP system and in our unique product configurator, TBV Designer, in all companies. This gives us a number of advantages, not least when it comes to punitive tariffs, which affect us to a lesser extent than a number of our competitors, especially those with production in China.

In 2025, we will begin construction of a new factory in the Czech Republic. It is a complex process and will cause some disruption over the next 18 months while construction is underway, but we have high expectations for the finished result. It will ensure sufficient production capacity for many years to come, and the Czech Republic is centrally located for the entire European market. In the future, we will produce closer to our customers. We must be able to scale quickly and flexibly between our factories and adapt to geopolitical trends. This is fully in line with our strategy when incorporating sustainability and the supply chain into our business model.

The outlook for 2025 is for solid growth, albeit at a slightly lower level than in 2024.

KE Fibertec's key figures for the last two years:

FACTS

KE Fibertec is one of the largest manufacturers of textile ducts on the global market, with its head office, production facilities, and weaving mill located in Vejen, Denmark. In addition, production facilities have been established in the Czech Republic and the USA.

The group consists of the parent company in Denmark and seven subsidiaries in Europe and the USA.

Exports account for approximately 90% of sales.

Owned by Jysk-Fynsk Kapital (70%), L. E. Kristiansen Erhvervsinvest ApS (10%) and KE Pulje 20% (owned by CEO Carsten Jespersen, Director Johnny Kusk Møller and CFO Svend Anker Fogh).