Only a few days remain until Christmas. However, the supposedly contemplative Advent days are particularly labor-intensive for many companies. These include companies whose products end up on the gift table.

Therefore, I would like to introduce you to a series of medium-sized companies for which the end-of-year business is particularly important. I would like to start with the Cewe Stiftung & Co. KGaA, Europe’s leading photo service and online printing provider.

Cewe in short The Oldenburg-based Cewe Stiftung & Co. KGaA is, according to its own information, Europe’s leading specialist for photo service and successful provider in commercial online printing. The company from the North is active in the fields of photo finishing, commercial online printing and retail.

In addition to the well-known Cewe photo books, the company produces wall pictures, calendars, classic photo prints and a variety of photo gifts. Last year alone, Cewe produced 5.85 million photo books. The number of photo prints developed by Cewe in the same period was 2.23 billion.

In addition, business documents such as letterheads, business cards and advertising materials are also part of the company’s portfolio. In Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Norway and Sweden as well as in Oldenburg, Cewe operates multi-channel concepts in the form of stationary stores and online shops.

There the company offers a selection of cameras, lenses and accessories, services and the entire Cewe photo finishing range. In addition, Cewe also distributes its photo products through 20,000 retail partners such as DM, Rossmann, Ringfoto, Saturn, Kaufland, Edeka and Amazon.

The company, founded in 1912, is still largely owned by the Neumüller family today. The share is listed in the SDAX. Cewe is present in 21 countries with 4,000 employees.

Good nine-month figures So far this year Cewe has presented good figures. Thus, the company was able to increase its turnover in comparison to the previous year by 8.9% to 453.2 million euros in the first nine months.

The development of operating profit (EBIT) was also similarly positive. The value for the period from January to September 2023 was EUR 2.3 million. This was 3.7 million euros more than in the previous year, where the nine-month value was still -1.4 million euros (Cewe usually earns the majority of its annual profit in the fourth quarter).

When announcing the nine-month figures, Cewe was confident that the annual targets would also be achieved, as a statement by Cewe CEO Yvonne Rostock clearly shows: “Based on the positive development of the first nine months, our very good preparation for the Christmas business and our robust business model, we are still clearly on target for the full year 2023”.

Specifically, the company expects to achieve a value in the range of 720 to 780 million euros in turnover in 2023. The operating result (EBIT) is expected to be in the range of 70 to 82 million euros in 2023.

Since the beginning of the year, the Cewe share price has risen by just under 14%. At the current price and valuation level, the paper does not have much room to the upside in the short term, according to my calculations. In the long term, however, the stock could also be interesting for dividend hunters, because the company is a very reliable dividend payer.