Group Management Report Products Safety Environment Human Resources Social Commitment Consolidated Financial Statements 61
To successfully implement these goals, we manage nearly all
of the Group’s internal financing centrally via ALTANA AG.
To this end, cash pools for all of the important currency areas
have been set up.
At the end of 2016, ALTANA’s liabilities totaled € 224 mil-
lion due to the issuance of two promissory note loans in
2012 and 2013 (€ 350 million in total). The outstanding prom-
issory note loans are divided into tranches with fixed inter-
est rates and different maturities. The loans will be repaid by
2020. Furthermore, there is a general syndicated credit fa-
cility of € 250 million. The term of this credit facility will last
until at least 2021.
This financing structure offers ALTANA the flexibility
it needs to appropriately take advantage of short-term or
investment-intensive growth opportunities. The distribu-
tion of the maturities of the financing instruments we use
enables us to optimally control repayment of liabilities with
inflows from operating cash flow.
We continue to use off-balance-sheet financing instru-
ments to a very limited extent. These include purchasing
commitments, operating leasing commitments, and guaran-
tees for pension plans. Details on the existing financing
instruments are provided in the online Consolidated Financial
Statements.
Liquidity Analysis
Key figures
2015 2016 Δ %
in € million
Cash flow from
operating activities 346.1 376.7 9
Cash flow from
investing activities - 140.7 - 234.3 N / A
Cash flow from
financing activities - 63.1 - 185.4 N / A
In the course of 2016, the level of cash and cash equivalents
decreased by € 46.5 million to € 375.6 million (previous
year: € 422.1 million). In addition, on December 31,
2016, there were short-term financial assets amounting to
€ 92.9 million involving money-market investments with
a remaining term of at least three months and less than one
year.
Cash inflow from operating activities amounted to
€ 376.7 million, an increase of € 30.6 million, or 9 %, over
the previous year (€ 346.1 million). As a result, the operat-
ing cash flow exceeded our expectations. At the beginning
of 2016, we expected the cash inflow to be roughly the
same as in the previous year. This growth was driven by the
consolidated net income and the positive development
of income tax items, as well as of provisions and other assets
and liabilities.
Compared to 2015, the cash outflow from investing
activities increased by € 93.6 million to € 234.3 million (pre-
vious year: € 140.7 million). This was driven by increased
investments in intangible assets, property, plant and equip-
ment, and money-market investments. The balance of
payment
for the acquisition of the BYK Addcomp companies
in 2016 and the deposit from the sale of the ACTEGA
Colorchemie group did not have a significant influence on
the cash outflow from investing activities.
The cash outflow from financing activities amounted
to € 185.4 million (previous year: € 63.1 million) in 2016. Debt
was reduced in the course of the year due to scheduled
repayments of promissory note loan tranches (€ 65.0 million)
and the termination of variable tranches totaling € 61.0 mil-
lion. The dividend payment in the 2016 fiscal year was on a
par with that of the previous year.