The German company Henkel is expecting minimal growth this year in the most favorable scenario. Henkel boss Carsten Knobel predicted this in an explanation of the company’s quarterly and annual figures. The maker of brands such as Schwarzkopf, Persil and Pritt achieved the lowest quarterly profit in four years. Henkel is struggling with difficult conditions in the industrial market, such as the automotive sector, and higher investments in marketing and digitization. The company already dampened expectations for this year at the end of last year. At the time, Henkel warned of a lower profit. Last year the company also came up twice with a profit warning. The operating result in the fourth quarter of 2019 amounted to 729 million euros. That was less than the 764 million euros that were generally taken into account in the markets. Knobel, who was in charge of Henkel this year, was certainly not satisfied with the results. He announced measures to improve matters.
