The new Chief Executive Officer of Nordex SE (ISIN: DE000A0D6554), Dr. Jürgen Zeschky, presents the group accounts for the first time today. In addition, Zeschky underscores that the Management Board, acting with the approval of the Supervisory Board, has decided to continue on the path of strategic reorientation already announced in recent months. Nordex will focus on its profitable core business in turbines for onshore wind farms. The company has been in talks about combining its offshore activities in a joint venture since summer 2011. Nordex is continuing negotiations with the aim of an intensive cooperation with its potential partner.
With this decision, Nordex wants to concentrate on developing new efficient products for onshore business in order to reinforce its competitiveness. With over 95 percent of the market in 2011, the onshore segment dominated the wind power industry in 2011. At the same time, many offshore installations have been postponed and new business declined by roughly 60 percent. For Nordex, this course reflects a conscious continuation of efforts to reduce its development risks.
At the same time, the Company has released its final consolidated financial statements for 2011, which confirm the preliminary figures published in February. Thus, consolidated sales declined by 5% to EUR 921 million due to project postponements in Europe and the relatively muted order backlog at the beginning of 2011. In addition, order intake in China dropped by 80% in the course of the year, causing a 44% drop in sales in Asia. On the other hand, US sales doubled, although this was not sufficient to fully make up for the declines recorded in other regions.
At the same time, order intake developed positively, rising by 32 percent to EUR 1,107 million. Nordex was able to defy market trends, particularly in Europe, recording an increase in new business of over 50% to EUR 856 million in this region. Accordingly, the order book amounted to around EUR 700 million at the end of the year (previous year: EUR 411 million), thus providing a solid basis for the sales growth planned for this year. This is additionally re-inforced by the expected pleasing marketing success in the first quarter of 2012, during which order intake rose by 84% to EUR 284 million (Q1/2011: EUR 154 million).
An operating loss of EUR 10.3 million was sustained at the the EBIT level before exceptional expenses and a non-recurring item (previous year: EBIT of EUR 40.1 million). This was chiefly due to lower market prices for wind turbines and reduced capacity utilisation together with higher structural costs. In the third quarter, Nordex launched a programme to lower structural costs by EUR 50 million to bring them into line with sales. This resulted in exceptional expense of EUR 13.1 million. The non-recurring effects of EUR 6.3 million comprise non-capitalised development expense for an offshore turbine. In the Europe segment, Nordex achieved adjusted operating earnings of EUR 4.1 million. A consolidated loss of EUR 29.7 million was sustained at the EBIT level after exceptional expenses and non-recurring items. Nordex plans to address the ongoing price pressure in the market by lowering its product costs and developing more efficient turbines.
On the strength of the Company’s solid order book, the Management Board assumes that sales will grow to EUR 1.0 - 1.1 billion this year. Depending on sales volume and the development of turbine prices, an EBIT margin of 1 - 3% is expected. In the medium term, Nordex wants to improve further its profitability, materially aided by the accelerated development of onshore turbines for different wind classes and attractive market segments.
