A year ago, northeast Ohio’s Diebold took over Germany’s Wincor Nixdorf. It created the world’s second largest ATM/banking technologies maker. The new company has lost money since then, including $30 million last quarter.
Diebold-Nixdorf CEO Andy Mattes say the merger process itself was a factor. Legal expenses, regulatory delays and reconciling operations cost more than expected.
He told investors this week that market issues contributed, too, including decision delays. But, he says the company is going for a turnaround in a very direct way.
“We’ve truly refocused our company in the last month on customer engagement and customer interaction. Yes, you can blame us for having been too inwardly focuse, especially in the second half of last year. We have taken very aggressive action to change that.”
Actions include sales training and more investment in finding innovations for customers.
Mattes also said the turnaround is supported by the strong, long-standing business base of both companies in the merger.
He especially noted what he calls the ‘legacy’ ATM installations in the U.S. and those in Europe.
“The legacy Wincor-installed base in Germany has been rock solid around 40,000 units for the last three years. So the main contributors to our service and our service profitability are very much intact.”
But Mattes and Diebold-Nixdorf management see the rest of 2017 still being in the transition phase of the merger and have reduced the income forecast for the year by about a $100 million, down to $4.8 billion or $4.9 billion.
