Swiss solar technology company Meyer Burger Technology AG (SWX:MBTN) narrowed its net loss to CHF 39.7 million (USD 42.4m/EUR 37.6m) in 2019 from CHF 59.4 million a year earlier, but said business development last year was “disappointing”.
The company has been going through a strategic realignment, focusing on its HJT/SmartWire connection technologies, and tandem cells combining HJT and perovskite. In the process, it divested or restructured certain non-core business units, reduced the fixed cost base and boosted the efficiency of the organisation.
As expected, the transformation of Meyer Burger had a negative impact on sales and orders last year. The difficult market environment caused by increasingly strong Chinese competition and the goals of the “Made in China 2025” strategic plan also hit revenues and margins, chief executive Hans Braendle said.
Incoming orders in 2019 almost halved to CHF 188.3 million from CHF 326.8 million. Adjusted for divestments, the drop was of 24.3%. Meyer Burger said it will introduce short-time working at its Hohenstein-Ernstthal site in Germany from March 16 so as to be able to compensate for the temporary decline in orders and reduce personnel costs.
Net sales fell to CHF 262 million from CHF 407 million in 2018. Adjusted for divestments and currency effects, the organic drop in sales for the continuing operations was 22.1%.
The lower revenues in the period, under-utilisation of capacities and restructuring costs resulted in negative earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of CHF 13.5 million, versus a positive result of CHF 26.8 million a year before. The EBITDA margin was negative 5.1%, against positive 6.6% in 2018.
"After a lull in growth during the last year, significant expansion in global installed solar power output is now forecast to return in 2020 and beyond. Meyer Burger is of the opinion that more than half of this solar power capacity will be installed outside China," Meyer Burger said of the future prospects for the solar industry.
The company's equity ratio at end-December 2019 was 64.1%, as comapred to 52% a year earlier.
(CHF 1 = USD 1.07/EUR 0.95)
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Image by Meyer Burger (www.meyerburger.com).
