- Group sales grew 26 per cent to € 13.3 billion, EBITDA increased 47 per cent to around € 2.4 billion, EBIT rose 89 per cent to over € 1.6 billion.
- Net income tripled to € 734 million.
- Cash flow from continuing activities increased by about € 200 million to around € 1.6 billion.
- Further reduction in net financial debt—considerable improvement in financial profile.
- Chemicals reported a record performance.
- Progress with strategic focus on specialty chemicals; Additional six executive board members appointed for chemicals business, effective April 1, 2011.
ESSEN, GERMANY: The operating business made a convincing start to the year for Evonik and 2010 was an outstanding year for the company. Evonik is currently more profitable than ever before, said Klaus Engel, Chairman, Evonik Industries AG at the financial press conference. The group’s core chemicals business reported by far the best performance in its history. In order to realize its focus on specialty chemicals, at the end of 2010 Evonik agreed to sell a majority stake in its energy business to a consortium of municipal utilities in Germany’s Rhine-Ruhr region.
To create a leadership position in specialty chemicals, the chemicals operations are more closely linked to the executive board. The group has also planned strategic investments such as building a new facility for isophorone chemicals, preferably in Asia, to come on stream in 2013.
For the fourth quarter in 2010, the company continued its good business performance with sales at €3,390 million, up 22 per cent from the fourth quarter of 2009. The group’s EBITDA was € 478 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, 18 per cent above the year-back figure of € 404 million. Despite the good operational trend in the chemicals business, net income of the Evonik Group was minus € 56 million, compared with € 29 million in Q4 2009.
Although there are ongoing risks and uncertainties in many economies and political unrest in Arab countries, Evonik expects demand for its products to rise, especially in the growth regions. Adverse factors could come from the continued rise in raw material costs.
© WOC News