Renewable

April 3 (Renewables Now) - Centrotherm International AG (FRA:CTNK) confirmed today its previously unveiled preliminary results for 2018 but guided for a lower top line in 2019.

The German company, which supplies manufacturing equipment to the photovoltaic (PV) and semiconductor sectors, forecasts a revenue of between EUR 90 million (USD 101m) and EUR 150 million for 2019 compared to a 2018 top line of EUR 180 million. It explained that the estimates for this year are lower because the large-scale projects it works on will “largely only impact revenue in 2020.”

At the same time, Centrotherm sees earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) at breakeven through to a positive result in 2019 because of high price- and competitive pressure, especially in the PV industry. For 2018, it reported an EBITDA of EUR 6.6 million that exceeded its previous guidance for a breakeven result.

In all, the group posted an after-tax profit of EUR 2 million for 2018, down from EUR 12 million a year earlier.

The table below gives more details about the group's 2018 performance.

“The successful acceptance of major projects before the end of 2018 was a factor that enabled us to outperform our targets. Bringing these projects to a conclusion forms an important basis for the future of the centrotherm Group,” stated CEO Jan von Schuckmann.

Even though the volume of orders from the PV industry was lower, the group got a total of EUR 88.2 million of orders last year. As of end-2018, its order backlog amounted to EUR 84.9 million.

(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.124)