Gurit grows 1.8% in FY 2012 despite weakening of Wind Energy demand towards year-end

 

 

FY 2012 Group net sales of CHF 351.0 million 1.8% above 2011

 

Automotive parts and composite material sales to new industrial markets drive sales growth in Transportation and Marine

 

 

Zurich/Switzerland, January 31, 2013. Gurit reports 1.8% higher un-audited net sales of CHF 351.0 million for FY 2012, which is slightly below its last annual guidance of around CHF 355 million. As announced in October, sales of materials to the global wind energy industry declined in the last quarter of the year. The American wind materials market nearly came to a standstill in Q4 2012, due to the late renewal of the production tax credits for renewable energies in the USA. In addition, Asian wind markets continued to suffer from a very low investment level, over-capacities, and price pressure. The decisive restructuring measures, which Gurit had immediately announced and implemented thus proved to be timely and appropriate. On the positive side, sales to Aerospace, Automotive as well as Industrial and Marine customers continued to grow during the last quarter of the year. Over the full year 2012, sales to Aerospace customers increased by 6.8%, sales to Marine and Industrial customers by 15.7%, whereas Automotive sales largely exceeded for the first time the sales volume of CHF 10 million with an increase of 76.4% compared with last year.

 

The new Group organisation announced earlier this year will help Gurit to address significant new growth opportunities beyond traditional markets and leverage its engineering and composites know-how as well as the Group’s global capacities and presence more effectively.

 

Supported not least by the now renewed production tax credits in the US, Gurit expects the Wind Energy market to recover gradually from current levels during 2013. Gurit’s Composite Material business should also benefit in 2013 from further growing sales to the existing and new markets. Additional customer wins and larger car body part series in Automotive as well as a slowly recovering Tooling business should boost Gurit’s Composite Systems and Engineering sales.

 

Key Sales Figures 2012

 

 

 

Net sales

YTD sales

Sales by quarter

in CHF 1000

2011

2012

Change in reported CHF

Change @ ytd 2012 transl.

Q1
2012

Q2
2012

Q3
2012

Q4
2012

Wind Energy

196’697

204’590

4.0%

0.2%

62’250

58’494

57’718

26’128

Tooling

43’216

24’936

-42.3%

-46.7%

3’763

13’616

3’151

4’406

Transport

51’859

60’137

16.0%

16.6%

14’164

13’938

15’173

16’862

Marine

49’764

57’553

15.7%

9.5%

14’524

13’097

14’438

15’494

Eng. Structures

3’183

3’804

19.5%

13.3%

1’056

743

1’027

978

Total Group

344’719

351’020

1.8%

-2.1%

95’757

99’888

91’507

63’868

 

 

 

 

Online publication of the Annual Report 2012 and Media/Analyst conference and international Webcast on March 12, 2013

Gurit will publish its full 2012 results on March 12, 2013 by issuing a press release and publishing its Annual Report 2012 online at 07.00 a.m. CET. Management will also discuss the results in further detail at a joint media and analyst conference in Zurich on March 12, 2013, at 09:30 a.m. The conference will take place at SIX Swiss Exchange’s Convention Point, Selnau Strasse 30, CH-8021 Zurich. The presentations will be held in English and will also be accessible as a webcast on www.gurit.com where an archived version will later be available for download. Please sign up for the live event by returning the enclosed registration form.