EANS-News: aleo solar Corporate News: aleo solar AG´s business picks up strongly in Q2
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aleo solar AG (ISIN: DE000A0JM634) generated revenue of EUR 118.1 million in the first six months of 2009 (H1/2008: EUR 159.4 million). The positive EBIT of EUR 2.6 million in the second quarter shows that the company has reached a turning point. At EUR -2.2 million (EUR 11.4 million), EBIT in the first six months reflected non-recurring inventory remeasurement losses of around EUR 5 million. Without these one-time losses, aleo solar would have been profitable again, thus underscoring its flexible cost structures. Earnings per share were EUR -0.27 (EUR 0.60). Production output totalled 38.6 megawatts (60.7 megawatts).
"Deliveries picked up significantly in the course of the first six months," said Uwe Bögershausen, member of the Management Board and CFO of aleo solar AG. "Although the first quarter fell behind the figures for the previous year, in the second quarter we were able to significantly exceed the previous quarter (25.6 megawatts), at 31.5 megawatts. We are gaining market share in a highly competitive but intact market. Our strengths in sales and marketing are paying off in this buyer´s market."
aleo solar AG is aiming for organic growth and is convinced that it will reach its planned sales targets. However, it is very difficult at the moment to predict the revenue that this volume target will achieve at the end of 2009 on account of the continuing price erosion. The company can manage gross profit well because cell prices - the most important cost factor - are also falling. Against the backdrop of the financial crisis, concrete earnings forecasts continue to depend to a large extent on macroeconomic developments. If, as some experts expect, conditions gradually improve in the second half of the year, the company is anticipating a relatively solid EBIT margin. aleo solar AG is aiming for further organic growth in 2010. However, it will only set concrete goals in the course of the second half of 2009.
The aleo solar Group will continue its focus on internationalisation. The company will generate around half of its revenue outside Germany by the end of next year. It has established a subsidiary, aleo solar North America Inc., to accelerate its business in North America and to significantly expand sales activities there.
Subsequent to the reporting period, aleo solar AG´s Management Board announced that certain core shareholders, who together hold almost 40% of the company´s share capital, had signed agreements with Robert Bosch GmbH regarding the sale of their shares. The selling shareholders comprise a group of investors around Marius Eriksen, the company´s initiator and co-founder, as well as a related company of HANNOVER Finanz, a financial investor that has been invested in aleo solar since 2005. Bosch intends to submit a suitable voluntary public takeover offer to the shareholders of aleo solar AG with the aim of acquiring the latter's remaining shares in connection with its acquisition of close to 40 percent of the shares of aleo solar AG. This transaction is subject to the formal conditions of approval by the antitrust authorities and that the minimum acquisition threshold, expected to be 75% (which will be defined in the voluntary public takeover offer), is reached.
end of announcement euro adhoc
Further inquiry note:
Franz Nieper
Investor Relations, Legal & Compliance
Tel.: +49 (0)441-21988-770
E-Mail: Invest@aleo-solar.de
Branche: Alternative energy
ISIN: DE000A0JM634
WKN: A0JM63
Index: CDAX, Prime All Share, Technologie All Share
Börsen: Frankfurt / regulated dealing/prime standard
Berlin / free trade
Hamburg / free trade
Stuttgart / free trade
Düsseldorf / free trade
München / free trade