Germany - Nordex announces decline of operating profit in 1st nine months of 2011

Therefore, the turnover and earnings targets for 2011 have been lowered. For 2012, however, the company expects profitable growth. According to Nordex, the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and rising capital requirements imposed on commercial banks have made financing of wind farm projects more difficult. As a result, some international contracts have been postponed, meaning that Nordex will no longer be able to realize them to the extent originally planned in the current year. Because of this, the Management Board now thinks that it will no longer be possible to achieve its turnover target of around € 1 billion. Sales are now expected to fall short of expectations by around € 80 million in the fourth quarter. This will reduce the operating profit by roughly € 20 million and, on the basis of full-year sales of € 920 million, result in an operating loss before non-recurring charges of € 10 million.

According to a press release, Nordex achieved an increase of roughly 9 % in turnover to € 668.2 million up to 30 September 2011 (previous year: 614.2 million). Sales in the third quarter were on a par with the previous year at € 264.9 million. Growth in the first nine months was driven by the 115 % increase in business volume in the United States. Orders rose by 34 % to € 708.5 million from the previous year's level of € 530.2 million. As of the balance sheet date, Nordex had further conditional orders worth € 1.3 billion on its books.

As the company reports, the gross margin increased by 0.5% to 27.2 % in the period under review, but profit was negatively affected by high structural costs, as had been expected. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) amounted to € 11.0 million to the end of the third quarter (previous year: € 17.3 million). This is equivalent to an EBIT margin of 3.7 % (previous year: 4.0%). In the year to date, the company has made a net loss of € 0.6 million.

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