GCL Poly’s net profit drops 8.3% y/y in H1 2015

Chinese firm GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd (HKG:3800) said Friday its attributable net profit for the first half of 2015 has declined by 8.3% in annual terms to HKD 825.7 million (USD 106.5m/EUR 94.5m) on account of higher costs.

The company makes silicon wafers and polysilicon for the photovoltaic (PV) industry and operates different types of power plants. GCL-Poly's bottom line result was largely impacted by a year-on-year jump in expenses along with a significantly higher loss related to a joint venture (JV) in the US.

The solar material division reported January-June earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of HKD 3.76 billion. GCL-Poly’s power business, which includes renewable and conventional power plants in China, posted EBITDA of HKD 646 million, while EBITDA from solar farms alone was HKD 167 million.

The Hong Kong-based firm’s consolidated gross profit margin for the period grew to 21.7% from 21.4% in 2014. Meanwhile, the gross profit margin for the solar material business decreased from 24.7% to 24.1%, which the company explains with lower polysilicon and wafer average selling prices (ASP). The latter were compensated by reduced production costs, because of the high utilisation of its manufacturing facilities and technological improvements.

GCL-Poly saw its revenues for the first six months of the current year jump by 4.2% year-on-year to HKD 17.94 billion, due to contributions from its New Energy Business. Per segment, revenues from solar materials sales were HKD 11.41 billion, the power generation division brought HKD 5 billion and the solar farms contributed with HKD 384 million.

At June 30, GCP-Poly had polysilicon production capacity of 70,000 tonnes and annual wafer production capacity increased to 14 GW. It has 18 MW of operating solar parks in the US and 353 MW in China.

(HKD 1.0 = USD 0.129/EUR 0.114)

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