Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the press conference of the Interroll Group for the annual year 2020. We have to do it a second time remotely due to this COVID crisis. You have a chat function. I may ask you to ask your questions during the presentation. We will cluster them at the end of the presentation. During a 15-minute window, we will reply. [Non-English content ] Now, I would like to give you first an overview on our agenda. I will start with a short introduction, followed by Jens Strüwing, who will discuss the latest achievement in terms of innovation, service, and production. Mr. Jens Karolyi, our Senior Vice President, Corporate Marketing and People Development, talks about customer comfort, customer trust, what is the difference. Also Mr. Heinz Hössli, he will talk about the results 2020.
At the end, I will give the summary and an outlook for 2020. Ladies and gentlemen, despite a very demanding year, we can enjoy a number of highlights. The first is we achieved an EBIT and a net result, which is approximately 30% ahead last year. That is the best result ever achieved in the history of the Interroll Group. During this challenging time, we did not lose any minutes and continued our innovation program at full speed. At the same time, to be prepared for the growth in the coming years on all three continents, we invested in capacity, digitalization, and markets. At the fourth here highlight is the material handling platform. Also here, we deepened and put in more digitalization into the projects. You will hear more and learn more about these highlights during the presentation.
As mentioned, ladies and gentlemen, 2020 was an extremely demanding year, but we passed the acid test. Why? I can summarize here the main three aspects why we could manage the year 2020 well. The first one is our culture. I think this is the first and the most important factor for our success. It's our DNA. We have people around the globe who are fully committed, who are doing every minute the best for the customer, whatever it takes. This culture, I would say, is unique. Secondly, over the last years, we established platforms in terms of innovation, which are easy to install, faster to deliver, and are state of the art of the technology. This enabled Interroll, in this demanding year, to gain more orders and also to gain market share from customers which we never had before.
I think this is also a good point for our future environment. The third one is business excellence. Here is the motto, "Do the homework on calm seas and not in the storm of a crisis." It looks very simple, but it's absolutely crucial. I remember in March, all the crew was on board, and from the first minute after the lockdown, we could concentrate on the most important thing in every company, that's the customer. We did not have to waste time with production and productivity or restructuring programs because we lived over the years, also in good times, our health program. That means no overweight and not high blood pressure, which is very dangerous when it comes to a crisis. The last point here on the business excellence I would like to not forget here is the high performance SAP.
I remember the last crisis in 2009, which we could handle quite well, but we were not so connected on the IT system. Now we have almost 40 companies, the backbone, really, to deal every minute and to give immediate feedback to the customer, it's our High-Performance Global SAP. This will help us also for the future when we talk about digitalization. We can base our digitalization projects on a profound and solid ground. Ladies and gentlemen, our growth is based on three pillars. The first pillar are the innovations. Last year, we announced the High-Performance Crossbelt Sorter, and already in the first year, it exceeded the expectations. We could sell more than we thought. The go live, the rollout was on a global basis, which was unique considering all the efforts you have to take behind the curtain.
Mr. Jens Strüwing will introduce, I use now the word disruptive, which I really use very seldom. Here I would talk about a disruptive innovation called Smart Pallet Mover, SPM. Why disruptive? When you imagine you have a motor, normally a motor is built on a conveyor. Here we have a motor, it moves wherever the pallet is. Such an idea nobody had before, of course, we patent this idea. Second, it's the first time we considered also the preparation and the project phase to really enable our customers, also the integrators, to reduce the project time and also the simulation to a minimum. This is something new, Jens Strüwing will explain you more about this.
The second pillar is the global presence, which we built on three continents and took clear actions to go on to build new plants, but also new market. You see here, for instance, Vietnam and the Philippines. On all three continents, we do really a lot. Just before the breakout of the Corona crisis, I just came back from Australia. Huge potential. Also here we did the homework really to nurture the market over the years, and we can harvest now the fruits in the future. The third pillar is the service. Over the last two years, we did a lot of homework, and now we enter in a position to carve out the entire service business to get it independent. Jens Strüwing will also talk more in detail about that. Ladies and gentlemen, talking about the success of tomorrow, which is, of course, important.
We have also to understand what was the success of yesterday, which is always based on the success of the previous success. With other words, when you build a house, you have to have a solid foundation, and you build stone by stone to have a solid construction. A solid construction means here vertical-wise, strategic position in the market power with more market share, that's vertical. Horizontal, I talk here about the strategic journey. Going back quickly to the year 2000. In the year 2000, we really had no profit and a high financial debt. That means we had to introduce a comprehensive restructuring program. I started 1st of January 2000. In parallel, we thought already, how should Interroll look in the future? Because that's not a one-day thing. To build that up, it takes decades, as we see.
At the same time, we divested also part of the business, which was not the core. In the last 21 years, we acquired also nine companies, smaller and bigger ones. A smaller one was just beginning of this year in the electronics and software area. You will also hear more about that. Summarizing the first phase of these 10 years is repositioning and building up a really profound technology. Considering when I started, Interroll was purely or virtually a roller manufacturer and marketer. The second phase, the next 10 years, came just after the crisis 2009, which we managed fairly well. What I learned personally are different things. One thing I learned, we really have to go a step further when it comes to our market.
We really have to go to the customer of our customer, not to sell our products, but to promote them, to get specified. Because there you know what is going on on the market and how our products are installed, and how they can really develop their value during application. The second point was really the platform concept. We started in 2011 with this MCP. Remember I or we presented that several times, this Modular Conveyor Platform, which is a huge success. Without having that, we would not have such result in 2020. We started also with other product. The third point, having just technology and a very good positioning, but not the market, we accelerated our global approach by establishing in total over the last 20 years, 17 new entities, mostly sales entities, but also partly production, all over the world.
Summarizing here, global approach platform together with the technology, really we had and we still have excellent starting point now going to the third strategic phase, which starts this year in 2021. Here is the modularity. What is the difference between modularity and platform? I made always the comparison with this LEGO box. You can buy for your children a big LEGO box, a small LEGO box, but the bricks are not always the same size. You have big, you have small bricks, and all bricks regarding Interroll have to have an interface to communicate with the other bricks, not just on the hardware side, but also on the software. That means we go into the modularity that we can communicate and build really a solution out of this LEGO box. That's a high requirement behind the curtain.
We are not an engineering company who wants to resolve the problem on site. We want to do it behind the curtain during our research and development programs. We also work with industry solution. Here you will see a new industry, which is the production logistics, where we start with this MCP and also business excellence. Business excellence is not a boring topic as you do your fitness program privately every day. We have to do it also in the company. No overweight. What I have seen over all the years, an EBIT and the financial result can still be good, whereas the underlying factors are already the early indicator, so-called the KPIs, could go already in the wrong direction. It's important to really to interfere and to have the right position early enough.
For the growth of the next 10 years, which I'm personally more than convinced, we also strengthen our position in the market. You may say now Interroll has already strong position and an excellent reputation. Yes, I can confirm while visiting always a lot of customers, a little bit less last year due to the corona crisis. Nevertheless, we have a solid position. We enable our customer, the system integrator, the conveyor makers with our program to make them more competitive, to shorten then the project time and the lead time with our leading platform. That's not enough. We want to go further in the next step. Long-term thinking means also to deepen the relationship with our customer. The customer who gives us the confidence. Here, the principle is trust is the most important asset you have. Interroll has a strong and good reputation.
In the next 10 years, we want to reinforce that by setting industry standards. We talk about digitalization. Authority here is of the essence. Interroll has to be an authority. That means our voice matters. At the same time, ladies and gentlemen, that's a huge responsibility. We cannot afford to let down our customers. We have to do whatever it takes to supply and to gain trust, which we prove now in this very challenging year, 2020. Trust gives also more growth, of course. You see that here with the state-of-the-art innovation. We believe that the customers can really trust on us also on innovation. They do not have to bother that we bring them the innovation regarding our portfolio. Let's summarize that in a 90-second video.
What drives us? Is it to define standards and pushing boundaries in our industry? Is it to reinvent material handling permanently or providing leading platforms for any purpose? Is it the fact that we are taking responsibility for every aspect of our work or to be the best active networker out there? There is only one reason. You and your business. For us, customer centricity is not only a promise. It is our obsession. Customer comfort and confidence. That's Interroll.
Customer comfort and confidence has to do with human beings, ladies and gentlemen. I talk here about our very exciting and strong team globally. They make the difference. They are the key for the success of tomorrow. What we have done in the past, we continue also regarding our expected further growth. On one hand, of course, we have to recruit our people to accommodate the growth. Here, we want to have people who are passionate and skilled, who are ready to go the extra mile. Who want to do the best, whatever it takes for the customer. This has to do with our culture. We need people who are sharing the culture, the same culture as Interroll has. On the other hand, we do the utmost really to enhance the level of competence internally with our people.
We have wonderful people, young people, who see a lot of opportunities as Interroll. We would like to accompany them in their journey during their business time at Interroll. Mr. Jens Strüwing, Mr. Jens Karolyi, sorry, is the head of also of our Interroll Academy, which is something unique when you consider the size of Interroll, which is very valuable. Here we have programs, modular programs, to organize also for now the next programs, which is the people development program for the next five years, followed by the Culture for Growth program, which we presented over the years, where we had more than almost 300 people. That's a following-up program in the next year. We are very sure that with these programs and the growth, really, we can accommodate the challenges of the future and remain successful also in five or 10 or 15 years.
We have to start now. Now I coming to Mr. Jens Strüwing, the Executive Vice President for Products and Technology. He will inform you about actions and results referring to innovation, production, and service. Please, Mr. Strüwing.
Thank you very much, Mr. Zumbühl. First of all, a warm welcome also from my side. Before going into the topics, I just want to mention one important point as a takeaway of the last year. As Mr. Zumbühl said, the last year was very challenging due to the COVID crisis. We really did learn one important point. We did learn to work closer together by keeping the necessary distance. I do think this is of essence, especially if you take a look into the operations functions. Looking into the three topics I do want to bring closer to you today. First of all, talking about capacity. Due to the strong demands and our forecasted growth, we have to adapt our capacities. I will give you some insights on what we have been doing globally. Looking into the innovations.
We did launch nice products, added value, giving programs and platforms for our customers. Last but not least, we did work on carving out our decentralized service organization and building up a strong central-based team. Let's look first into the global expansion. I want to start with the Americas. We have actually a high potential for sort of projects. This is due to the fact that the habits of the market did significantly change all over the world, due to the COVID crisis. e-commerce is of essence, and it's getting more and more important. Due to this fact, we did decide to launch a new factory in our area, in our production area in Hiram. We could already launch this factory in the second quarter of 2020.
This building is already full as we have a lot of customer demands in the U.S., and we are talking about further investments in automation. This is going especially into welding robots, but also assembly operations. Looking into the Eastern Hemisphere, Asia Pacific. Beginning of last year, we did relocate our existing factory in Shenzhen into a new building close to the old location, and this production location is up and running. In 2020, we already also decided to move our current rented production location in Suzhou, nearby Shanghai, into a new one, which will be owned by Interroll, and we did start the construction phase with a groundbreaking ceremony in January 2021. The target is to have this factory in operation middle of 2022. As you know, there's at the moment a strong potential for our products, platforms, and systems in entire Southeast Asia.
Coming back to the EMEA region. One highlight was the acquisition of the MITmacher GmbH in January 2021, which we did use as foundation for our new Center of Excellence Software & Electronics, which is already up and running and is providing the first solutions to our Interroll products. Last but not least, we have to mention the new plant in Mosbach we are actually building. This plant is located 20 km in the north of our current location in Sinsheim. Within this location, we will move the conveyor center of excellence, which is located at the moment in Sinsheim, and the Center of Excellence for Pallet Handling, which is at the moment located in Kronau. We have to do this move, as the current building in Sinsheim is running out of capacities.
We already did rent several buildings around to cope the demands on our production of capacities. We do call this process a carve-out process, or you can call it cell split. This is reducing capacity in the Sinsheim location as we are splitting here the CoE conveyor and sorter into a CoE for conveyors and another CoE for sorter. It is adding capacities as we can use the shop floor space of the conveyor production, which will be moved to Mosbach for the sortation business. It is increasing flexibility. I'm really looking forward to starting the operations in early June this year in the new factory. Looking into innovation, and most probably you will remember the launch of our new High-Performance Crossbelt Sorter at the same time last year. We did do a short presentation during the last year's press conference.
The sorter is located in the so-called high-performance segment, which is covering the most relevant markets, courier express parcel, but also high volume distribution. Going downwards and looking into the middle segment, into our is offering since years our most proven solution, the horizontal and the vertical Crossbelt Sorter. We have more than 400 installations running all over the world. The most relevant markets which is covered by this segment is the e-commerce, the fashion, and also the distribution. In 2021, just two weeks ago, we did launch a new sorter, which is located in the basic segment. We do call it Split Tray Sorter. The most relevant market which we are covering with this sorter is the fashion and textile industries, but also the distribution for smaller package.
What I have to mention here with the Split Tray Sorter, it's the first time that Interroll is offering beside the mechanical solution also the electric solution around and a control solution which is perfectly matching to the mechanical setup. This is the first outcome of our new CoE Software & Electronics, what we did establish at the beginning of this year in Linz, Austria. Mr. Zumbühl did already mention that we have a disruptive innovation in the wider area of pallet handling. This is the Smart Pallet Mover. I will give you on the next slide a short introduction with a short video how this one is moving. This SPM is going into a complete new market where Interroll was not that present that far. This is the machine side pallet handling, bringing goods to machines, to production machines and taking goods off.
With the Modular Pallet Conveyor Platform concept for pallets, the MPP and the Dynamic Storage, Interroll is now able to offer platforms for all intralogistics application within production facilities. It's the transportation with the MPP. It's the machine or line side handling with the Smart Pallet Mover. It's pallet warehousing with the Dynamic Storage. Let me give you some more insights on the SPM, the Smart Pallet Mover with a short video.
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Ladies and gentlemen, as said by Mr. Zumbühl, this is a real disruptive innovation. We have here a kind of two-layer concept. The first layer, the robot is moving. This is basically our motor. The disruptive innovation is that we are just using one motor for moving the pallet in the entire system. We also have to look into the open interface we did implement in this platform concept.
This system can easily be connected to the machines around. It's an easy-to-install application for our customers, and we can offer short lead times through this modular platform concept. Touching our last topic, we did look into 2020. This is the Global Lifetime Service. As said, we did carve out the decentralized service functions and are combining them into a European organization. This European organization will start its operation in July this year, and we will offer three main solutions for our customer. The first one is the spare part and refurbishment. We are actually installing a European warehouse in the wider area of Karlsruhe, from where we can supply spare parts into all EMEA regions. We will further on continue to operate our refurbishment center in Baal, Düsseldorf, where we can refurbish the motors, especially the drum motors, but also other applications like our High Performance Divert.
The second pillar of this service organization will be the maintenance and installation. We will offer installation service to our system integrators, supporting them in installing our systems, and we'll offer maintenance services for all European countries by having a decentralized installation and maintenance team set up in the service organization. Last but not least, we are also looking into consulting, training, and retrofit to support our customers in training their own people in operating our systems and our products. I hope I could give you, with this overview, some insights on what we have been working on in 2020. I do want now to hand over to my colleague, Jens Karolyi, who will present you the highlights of the sales organization in 2020. Thank you very much.
Thank you for the introduction, Jens Strüwing. My name is Jens Karolyi. Good morning to everyone watching our press conference here. Today, I'm going to talk more about this Customer Comfort and Confidence. Of course, as already mentioned, I also want to introduce you to the sales figures, how we were doing last year, and how you can analyze this further. I start with rollers and drives and controls. This is really our bread-and-butter business, has always been and will be also in the future. For us, this year, of course, was a challenge, like for everyone else as well. What we decided was really we wanted to safeguard our people first. We wanted to have a safety mechanism in our factories because we decided we want to produce and deliver to our customers, even in these tough times.
There were challenges, of course, with the supply chain and so forth, but we could actually grow locally with local currencies in many markets. We also had to face challenges like the dropping airport business, where we usually sell a lot of drum motors. Here you can see the drum motor business declined a little bit. At the same time, we could really establish the 48-volt RollerDrive, the DC Platform with all these kind of accessories, like the power supply and also the control cards, really make that one as a de facto standard in the industry. Conveyors and sorters. That's really a success story.
Here, we can also not only say we have a great product that is the de facto standard in the industry, but also here we are really providing solutions based on our platforms, solutions that perfectly match with all our platforms and products that we have on offer, actually, globally. You can see yourselves, conveyors and sorters has been growing nicely in the order intake area. That is, of course, due to the fact that the CEP business, the e-commerce business, has grown tremendously last year and is still growing, by the way. We could also conquer ground in production logistics and food delivery implementation warehouses, where we could also gain market share. Pallet handling, on the other hand side, was a little bit declining. That is due to the fact that, of course, projects have been postponed.
The good news is, from the second quarter of last year, we saw the momentum, and now the business is catching up again into the new year of 2021. Digitalization. That's not only a buzzword for us. That's not only using the technology because the technology is there. For us, digitalization has a lot to do with customer comfort. We want to offer solutions and platforms that actually add value to our customers, where they can better plan and to organize their business. This is really a customer journey, where we start with the idea of a customer, where we help customers to find the right products, to kind of benchmark our solutions, look into the right technologies for themselves. They can use our layout. They can use the different configuration systems. Of course, they can also purchase our solutions over the web.
We have a couple of web shops that our customers can connect to and have a very easy business with Interroll. This all is supposed to lead to a Superior Customer Confidence. What do we mean by that one? First, we change the sales organization in that way that we are organizing now so-called solution sales teams. Those are the guys that speak on the same eye level with end users about their applications, about their business needs, about their challenges. Here, we are advising our customers and the customers of our customers, and we are also acting, like Mr. Zumbühl has mentioned, as an authority in this industry with all our vast experience and the know-how that we have established over the years.
At the same time, we continue developing our global account management, where we work as a partner, fully compliant with all the regulations and all the expectations from big customers globally, and we also ask for feedback. We have established the so-called Net Promoter Score, which is a methodology, a very proven methodology, to measure customer satisfaction. We listen to our customers, we want to improve, and we get back with a better service, with a better appreciated business. The next one is really our partnership network Rolling On Interroll that has been started five or six years ago. By now, we have more than 100 selected customers, top players in the industry that are exchanging their insights and competence with us, but also matchmaking business. That means we have several partners that work together on joint projects and grow themselves and grow, of course, also Interroll's business.
Last not least, these guys are also now prepared to be our field service partners in remote countries or in other countries where we first need to establish our own organization. That's also very good matchmaking here and helping us to balance the business. Last not least, my academy, the Interroll Academy. I'm very proud of this one. Here we are establishing a license to sell concept. We train our salespeople to become better, to really describe the added value to our customers, our superior solutions. We are also offering customer trainings, and we are using all different platforms, e-learnings, podcasts, and so forth. Last not least, we also work here with quite some interesting institutes. One example here is the Fraunhofer Institute in Dortmund. I would not leave you without showing you another video. This video is quite interesting in terms of customer confidence as well.
This is actually a repeat business. We have been there some years ago to install a whole new retrofit application for this customer, Ulla Popken. It's fashion. By now, of course, this company has been growing. It's much more working with e-commerce, and there was a need for a sortation solution and a modernization of the entire plant. What we could do with our partners also, by the way, Rolling On Interroll partners, was to modernize the entire plant with the latest technology of the DC Platform. Also, we help them to have access to a used sorter that was modernized and retrofit. That sorter was running six years before another third-party application and is now fully installed at this wonderful application close to Bremen, actually.
Fashion should be fun, regardless of the size of the clothes. The Popken Fashion Group is an internationally operating family-run fashion company specializing in plus-size fashion. The collections of the four brands, Ulla Popken, Gina Laura , Studio Untold, and JP1880 are sold in around 600 shops and via the group's online shops with more than 3,600 employees in over 30 countries. In addition to the previous central warehouse in Rastede in Northern Germany, a completely new hall was built in a construction period of 12 months. In cooperation with the automation specialists from ADITOR and the conveyor technicians from REMA TEC, and with the support of the specialists from Interroll, a tailor-made solution for further growth was created. The new and processed goods reach the new hall via a tunnel. The centerpiece, an Interroll Crossbelt Sorter with 150 terminals.
It was used for six years for a large order logistics company. With the support of an Interroll supervisor, the much larger system was dismantled and adapted to the new project layout. At 1.7 m per second, up to 7,200 parts per hour now run through the system. The project goals of increasing capacity, productivity, and digitalization were achieved with smart economic means. Interroll was not just creating the basis for this retrofit. Thanks to the self-evident modularity of all components, it was possible to create a precisely tailored design that exactly meets current requirements. The latest RollerDrive series, EC5000, was installed 680 x in the system. With its three performance classes, it always allows the right combination of necessary power and cost efficiency. RollerDrive, conveyor rollers, controls, power supplies, and additional products are perfectly matched to each other.
No matter what cuts or styles, one thing is certain, Interroll is always in tune with the latest trends.
Okay. Thank you very much. With this, I hand over to my colleague and our CFO, Heinz Hössli. Thank you.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Also warm welcome from my side. I have the pleasure to present you the financial result 2020. Our order intake did grow by 0.3%. In local currency, we grew by 6.6%. You see the big discrepancy. This comes from the foreign exchange impact we suffered. If you look at the product groups, you see the highlight conveyors and sorters, which grew 8.5%, but also rollers with a -0.3% did grow considerably in local currency. Pallet handling decreased 9.2%, but also this is much better than after the first six months. We had a good order pipeline coming in the second semester of 2020 in pallet handling. The book-to-bill ratio is 1.03, which is good, and we could increase our order backlog. Our sales decreased by 5.2%, also due to a strong foreign exchange impact.
In local currency, we could increase our sales by 0.9%. If you look at the regions, there is a quite diverse picture. Americas, very strong performance with a + 6.1%. Also Asia with a - 4.6% did grow in local currency. In EMEA, we suffered from project postponements in the first lockdowns in Europe in spring. This resulted in a negative growth of 10.6%, also here, there is a very strong foreign currency impact, which is more than 50% of the decline. If you look how the proportions have changed, you can see that Asia did steadyhold at 16% of the total sales. Americas gained 3% on the cost of EMEA. Now we come to the performance. The performance increased the EBIT with 30.1% to CHF 94.1 million.
A favorable margin mix from the products we sold together with a very high cost discipline led to an EBITDA of CHF 115.4 million, which is a plus of 20.1%. Between EBITDA and EBIT, we have lower amortization, which led to an improvement. The EBIT margin increased by 37.2% from 12.9% -1 7.7%. The result increased by 28% to CHF 71.7 million. We had a negative financing result mainly coming from foreign exchange loss and a slightly higher tax rate. The result margin increased by 35% from 10%- 13.5%. The very strong performance is also visible in the operating cash flow of CHF 122.9 million, which is a + 23.4%. Thanks to the excellent result coming from the net profit, we also had an improvement in net working capital. This mainly coming from advanced payments, which have been on a much higher level than the year before.
The operating cash flow is now to a + 23.4%. The investments, we increased heavily, as already mentioned by Mr. Jens Strüwing. The increase was considerable, we invested CHF 51.3 million this year. This is in line with the overall plan of CHF 150 million investments for the year 2020 - 2022. Despite the high investment, we could also increase the free cash flow by 10.6% to CHF 74 million. On this chart, you see from 2009 - 2020 the development of the two key KPIs, return on equity and return on net assets. You can see that these two KPIs moved quite parallel until the year 2017. From 2018 on, you can see a decoupling, whereas the return on net assets grew faster than the return on equity. This is also thanks to the better asset utilization.
Since 2016, Interroll is a member of the UN Global Compact and commits to the ESG standards. The SIX Swiss Exchange in six selected Interroll to be a part of the SPI ESG and the SPI ESG weighted indices, which went live in February this year. A full ESG report is planned to be published for the financial year 2022, which then also is including quantitative KPIs. At the moment, we are preparing the roadmap, and as a first step, we have included in the sustainability report 2020 for the first time sustainable development goals besides the report on progress from the UN Global Compact. At the upcoming general assembly on May 7th, the Board of Directors will propose a dividend of CHF 27 per share. This is a big increase of 20% compared to last year.
With this, the payout ratio would reach 31.4%, which is a bit lower than last year with 33.7%. The board of directors also proposes Mr. Paul Zumbühl as Chairman, as he will retire as the CEO. If elected, he would act for the first two years as an active Chairman. Mr. Urs Tanner would at the same time act as an independent Lead Director. In addition, the board also proposes Mrs. Susanne Schreiber to be elected. She would replace Mr. Bottini, who chose not to stand for re-election and will leave the board of directors after 18 years of service. This is already my last slide. Here you can see the dividend development from the year 2000- 2020. This is also the tenure where Mr. Zumbühl was the CEO of Interroll.
You can see the first years with a dividend of CHF 2.50 and then a steady increase to the proposed CHF 27 for the year 2020. This dividend curve is more or less also in line with the increase of the profitability of Interroll over the course of these 20 years. With this, I would conclude, and I would hand over to Mr. Zumbühl for the summary and outlook.
Thank you, Mr. Hössli, for the presentation of the financial figures. We are already at the outlook 2021. Let's shortly summarize what we learned during the presentation. We talked about customer confidence, which goes in line with our growth. With trust, you cannot grow. It's important that we go on and shaping the evolution of material handling as an authority. Here, we should be the trendsetter. Secondly, we talked about innovation. Here we go on at full speed. We have a full pipeline of ideas and concepts for the next coming years. I do not have any doubts that we have not enough innovations over the next 10 years. We have to go step by step, as already mentioned, to maintain the success also for the future.
We talked about long-term capacity expansion, the worst what you can have if you have customers and you are not ready to supply. In May 2020, I just recalled, we just finished our new plant in Hiram. At the same time, we were in negotiation for this big order, which we released also in the press release in June. Thanks also, not only because of that, but also thanks to this capacity, we got the order. Based on the concept, we do not doubt any moment that we utilize all these investments very diligently in the future. Finally, the most important is really to invest in our employees and qualification. We need people, we need excellent people fitting to our culture, not just coming from externally, but also really build them up with our Interroll Academy. We had a quite good start in 2021, also for projects.
As I mentioned last July, after six months, where a number of projects were on hold, these projects are now to a majority of cases, released. We had a good start in terms of orders. That make me cautiously positive to the results and the order intake and sales for 2021. Of course, if there is not another wave in the corona situation. Of course, we have uncertainties in Germany at the moment with the lockdown, but we are quite optimistic, cautiously optimistic. We go on with our innovation, but also the efficiency program. I say always to our people, the efficiency is the life insurance to really keep the job also in 10 years. It's up to everybody to make the job 100%, and then we can enjoy also the growth and the satisfaction in such a great company.
Ladies and gentlemen, after more than 21 years in office, I will step down as CEO on April 30, 2021. I'm very happy that the board selected Mr. Ingo Steinkrüger as the next CEO. I'm convinced that he has the right mindset, the right culture. That's the most important thing. In parallel, he has gained over more than 20 years in his industry, an excellent recognition. He's a true leader, but also an excellent expert in business development, technology, platform, digitalization, all these challenges and these exciting parts which are coming for Interroll in the next 10 years. The fit is perfect in my opinion. I have the pleasure now to present him live here. He will start May 1. We do not have an overlapping. I step down April 30, and he will start May 1.
I will now go to Mr. Steinkrüger, and he will present himself. Thank you.
Good morning, everybody, and thank you, Mr. Zumbühl, for giving me the chance to introduce myself in this press conference today, although I'm not even in charge right now. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ingo Steinkrüger. I'm 48 years old, and I have two children. I'm married, and my son, he's just turning 14 this summer, and my daughter, she turns 12 this summer. I declare myself as a passionate engineer. Reflecting myself over the years in my private and in my business life, I do see three major values that would characterize me best. First is being grounded, second is being engaged, and third is being focused. This is what I found at Interroll, a perfect match of my values to the Interroll ones.
Being grounded means to me that you have to put everything into different perspectives, knowing what you're good at, but also reflecting that as a team, you can achieve more and at most. Everything you do or decide has to have an impact, this generates a long-term view. Engagement, respectively passion, is elementary for me to motivate myself and others to get better and to achieve more, this creates a climate of excellence. Focus on what you are thinking or doing is one of the key success factors to not get distracted. Focus helps me understanding and is of absolute importance to find good solutions, this makes you fast and committed. I did find these values not only written in the company brochure.
I felt these in every contact I had so far, whether it was Paul Zumbühl, Urs Tanner, or the rest of the board of directors. Also, the few contacts I had already with my future team members were the same: excellent, committed, fast, and very friendly. I'm 21 years in the industry, working in various positions for system integrator and serial production manufacturer in the automotive industry. Now, I am moving into the intralogistics, an industry that, from my understanding, is just at its beginning. Speed, innovation, reliability, and a global network will be of high importance for the future of material handling, and Interroll will play a major role in that circumstance. We will have the responsibility to help our customers to deliver what they are promising. For me, this sounds really exciting with a lot of innovative solutions.
All I learned, whether in business development, technology, digitalization, organizational changes, strategy, or leadership, will help on our future journey. With respect but also with a very high motivation, I am really looking forward to become a member of the Interroll family. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Steinkrüger, for your introduction. I am very convinced that you, Ingo Steinkrüger, will take Interroll very successfully to the next level, together with a strong and highly committed team. Since 2016, our Chairman, Mr. Urs Tanner, has wisely and diligently planned and introduced a succession plan on board level and also on CEO level to ensure a seamless, continuous, and further successful development of the Interroll Group. Having said that, I will be proposed by the Board of Directors in the next annual general meeting in May 2021 as the next Chairman of the Board. He proposed further for the first two years an additional function as an active chairman. Why? As said, long-term thinking, continuity and consistent actions along our strategic guard rails brought success and will bring success.
At the same time, I explained these three strategic phases, and we are just entering the third strategic phase and the timing could not be better with the start of the new CEO. It is a critical and important phase here to remain successful. I am very glad to support Mr. Ingo Steinkrüger, not operationally, but in the background strategically in major three areas: Long-term projects related to this third strategic phase in terms of digitalization, innovation, marketing and sales, mergers and acquisitions and investor relations. Checks and balances are essential, ladies and gentlemen. For that reason, assuming a successful election of Mr. Urs Tanner and myself in the upcoming AGM, he will ensure in the first year as lead independent director, strict compliance with corporate governance guidelines and represent also the board of directors in the event of any conflicts of interest.
Last but not least, this is my 22nd and last press conference as the CEO of the Interroll Group. I am very grateful and it has been a great honor to serve such a beautiful company. I would like to thank everyone who has trusted me during all these years. Last and not least, I want to thank sincerely the entire Interroll crew who made all these results over all the years happen. Thank you. Now we are coming to the end of the presentation, ladies and gentlemen. We would like to give now answers to your questions. Here, maybe I switch now to German. [Non-English content] Annual Report.
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