For Hti Group stable revenues in 2024. R&D expenditure and employment grow

After years of steady growth in 2024, the run-up in the accounts of the Hti Group, which ranges from ropeways with the companies Leitner, Poma, Bartholet and Agudio, snow groomers, tracked vehicles and vegetation management (Prinoth and Jarraff), snowmaking and dust suppression systems (Demaclenko and Wlp), wind energy (Leitwind), hydroelectric power (Troyer) and digitalised management of ski resorts (Skadii) slows down. The year 2024 ended with a turnover of EUR 1,402m, which was largely stable (-5% compared to 2023), while the group increased its expenditure on research and development and the number of employees. On the other hand, research and development activity accelerated, spending rose to 41 million against 39 million in 2023, investment in durable goods to 63 million against 59.2 million, and staff training expenditure to another 3 million.

"It is a time of great macroeconomic change that requires us to be even more flexible," comments Anton Seeber, president of the Group, which has won a number of orders this year in the field of urban mobility from Mexico to France, while solutions for the snow industry continue to be the core business. In 2025, Hti will continue its growth path. Numerous projects will be launched or completed in the coming months. A large part will concern cableway transport, both in the winter tourist context and in urban areas, a sector that is constantly expanding. They range from Mexico, with the start of work on two new, additional installations in the capital's metropolitan area, to El Salvador, passing through the inauguration of another structure in Santo Domingo, the opening of the Ajaccio urban cableway in Corsica, and in all likelihood the opening of construction sites for Italy's first urban cableway in Trieste. Still on the subject of cableways, but this time in the mountains, 2025 will see major investments in Italian resorts, from Alto Adige to Val d'Aosta via Trentino and Belluno, but it will also mark the return after a few seasons of Leitner in Spain, which will build two installations in Benasque and Astun in the Pyrenees of Aragon. Lastly, among the Italian novelties there will be the commissioning of the so-called 'apple cableway' for the management and transport of the typical product of Val di Non in Trentino, and, again in Trentino, two inclined lifts, the one in Mesiano will connect the centre of Trento with the university's engineering department, and the one in Predazzo, which will be built close to the new ski jumps in view of the 2026 Olympics.

"The thousands of outstanding employees who work alongside us all over the world, and who this year exceeded the record quota of 4,800," comments HTI President Anton Seeber, "have once again enabled us to achieve brilliant results, of which we can only be proud. We are going through an economic period of great change, which requires us to be even more flexible and adaptable in line with the changing global environment. I am sure that our agility combined with the acknowledged quality and reliability of our products will be able to continue the group's development within those values that are fundamental to us, from innovation to sustainability, passing through diversification and internationalisation'.

During 2024, the group made major investments starting with two in the USA and Canada as well as in Italy. In addition to the historic Grand Junction facility in Colorado, Leitner Poma of America, with an investment of 30 million dollars, can now also count on the Tooele production centre in the state of Utah. The other new facility that saw the ribbon cut in 2024 was the Granby facility in Canada where Prinoth, through an investment of $25 million, can effectively double its overseas production (this is where the new Panther XLs commissioned by Norsk Polarinstitutt, the Norwegian National Institute for Polar Research and destined for Antarctica, are made). The third centre concerns logistics. In Oppeano, near Verona, the Leitner Customer Service Global Logistics Centre has sprung up, a 21,000 square metre facility from which goods and spare parts leave for the whole world.