SHARE
COPY LINK

ENERGY

Linde avoids financial crisis with big net profit increase

Linde, the world's biggest industrial gases group, posted a 32-percent jump in third quarter net profit on Monday and said it had not yet felt the impact of the global financial crisis.

Linde avoids financial crisis with big net profit increase
Photo: DPA

Net profit rose to €177 million ($228 million) from the same period a year earlier, on sales that gained 2.3 percent to €3.14 billion, a company statement said.

Analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a lower net profit of €165 million, but higher sales of €3.23 billion for the Munich-based group which also builds industrial plants.

Linde has benefitted in particular from strong growth in emerging economies.

Core earnings exceeded expectations as well, gaining 6.5 percent to €652 million.

“The economic crisis has not yet had an impact on us,” Linde chief executive Wolfgang Reitzle said in a statement. “We are still on track.”

Many other German industrial groups have warned that profits will suffer from the international financial crisis and economic slowdown.

But Linde reaffirmed its 2008 outlook, and expected “the international gases business to remain a relatively stable and lucrative market for the rest of the year and in coming years.”

“We confirm our outlook for the current financial year 2008 and expect sales growth and an above-average increase in earnings,” the statement added.

In the nine months from January to end September, Linde’s sales gained 11 percent after adjusting for foreign exchange fluctuations to €9.392 billion, while operating profit jumped by 12.9 percent to €1.91 billion.

Reitzle told a telephone news conference however that Linde’s medium term target of an operating profit of more than €3 billion in 2010, had become “very ambitious in light of the current environment.”

“Even a business like ours cannot remain immune to the adverse economic climate,” the company statement said. But, it added, “our order books at the end of September are well-filled and we continue to expect orders to be processed on schedule.”

Reitzle told the news conference that “there is practically no industry in the world that does not use gas in one form or another.

“Even in these troubled times, all industries do not collapse at the same time.”

Shares in the industrial gas giant rose by 1.84 percent to €66.31 in midday trading on the Frankfurt stock exchange, while the DAX index had gained 0.54 percent overall.

BUSINESS

France’s EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

French energy giant EDF has unveiled net profit of €10billion and cut its massive debt by increasing nuclear production after problems forced some plants offline.

France's EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

EDF hailed an “exceptional” year after its loss of €17.9billion in 2022.

Sales slipped 2.6 percent to €139.7billion , but the group managed to slice debt by €10billion euros to €54.4billion.

EDF said however that it had booked a €12.9 billion depreciation linked to difficulties at its Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Britain.

The charge includes €11.2 billion for Hinkley Point assets and €1.7billion at its British subsidiary, EDF Energy, the group explained.

EDF announced last month a fresh delay and additional costs for the giant project hit by repeated cost overruns.

“The year was marked by many events, in particular by the recovery of production and the company’s mobilisation around production recovery,” CEO Luc Remont told reporters.

EDF put its strong showing down to a strong operational performance, notably a significant increase in nuclear generation in France at a time of historically high prices.

That followed a drop in nuclear output in France in 2022. The group had to deal with stress corrosion problems at some reactors while also facing government orders to limit price rises.

The French reactors last year produced around 320.4 TWh, in the upper range of expectations.

Nuclear production had slid back in 2022 to 279 TWh, its lowest level in three decades, because of the corrosion problems and maintenance changes after
the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hinkley Point C is one of a small number of European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) worldwide, an EDF-led design that has been plagued by cost overruns
running into billions of euros and years of construction delays.

SHOW COMMENTS