Wacker sales stay on upward trend
ERJ staff report (TP)
Munich, Germany – Wacker Chemie AG reported in its second quarter results that sales were up 8% on a year earlier.
The company generated Q2 2014 sales of €1,242.3 million (Q2 2013: €1,150.3 million) – 7 percent higher than in the preceding quarter (€1,157.4 million).
Wacker said this continued its upward trajectory for sales and earnings, mainly due to substantially higher volumes.
All five business divisions generated both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter sales growth.
These results enabled it to “more than compensate for the price pressure in some product segments as well as the unfavourable effects of weaker US-dollar and Japanese-yen exchange rates relative to the previous year”.
The increase in second-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) outpaced sales growth. It climbed to €229.5 million after €188.2 million in Q2 2013 – almost 22 percent more than a year earlier.
Q2 2014 earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) amounted to €82.1 million (Q2 2013: €52.5 million). This is a year-on-year increase of around 56 percent that yielded an EBIT margin of 6.6 percent (Q2 2013: 4.6 percent). Net income for the quarter under review was €29.4 million (Q2 2013: €15.1 million) and earnings per share amounted to €0.64 (Q2 2013: €0.27).
It has “substantially” upgraded its earnings forecast for full-year 2014. As already announced, full-year 2014 EBITDA is now expected to be at least one-third higher than in 2013 (€678.7 million).
Wacker had previously assumed that it would exceed the prior-year figure by at least 10 percent. The company continues to expect to post a mid-single-digit percentage increase in Group sales (2013: €4.48 billion).
More details in the 2600-word press release.
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