LANXESS Group Announces Second-Quarter Results to Revise Up Earnings Expectations

LANXESS Group Releases Second-Quarter Earnings Report, Annual Profit Before Interest, Tax Depreciation, Amortization Expected to Increase by 20% YoY, EBITDA Before and After EBIT in the Second Quarter was 339 Million Euros , an increase of 26%, second-quarter sales of 2.2 billion euros, an increase of 23%, second-quarter net profit of 181 million euros, an increase of 38%, the Greater China sales of 229 million euros in the second quarter, an increase of 14.3% .

· Demand for synthetic rubber and high-tech plastics continues to grow

LANXESS, the world’s leading specialty chemicals group, recorded a record high in the second quarter of 2011, and the Group therefore raised its earnings forecast for fiscal 2011. The company expects the EBITDA within the scope of its regular business to achieve a growth of approximately 20%, which was previously forecast to grow by 10-15%. In the second quarter, the Group’s profit before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization within the scope of its regular business achieved a 26% increase, reaching 339 million euros.

“Our clear focus on innovation, superior products and emerging markets, coupled with effective price strategies that outperform sales, once again earned us impressive results,” said Dr. He Deman, Chairman of the Management Board of LANXESS Group. "It is worth mentioning that thanks to the global trend toward mobility, our synthetic rubber and high-tech plastics business has performed well."

In the second quarter, group sales increased by 23% year-on-year to 2.2 billion euros. All business segments have implemented price increases to transfer the increased raw material costs. In addition, a series of recent acquisitions, in particular the acquisition of the EPDM business of the DSM Elastomers division, have contributed to sales growth, and a richer product mix has also brought positive effects. Although affected by the decline of the US dollar, the negative impact from the exchange rate reached 7%, but the group's sales still achieved growth.

The marginal rate of profit before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization within the scope of regular business in the quarter reached 15.1%, compared to 14.7% in the same period of last year. Net profit increased by 38% year-on-year to 181 million euros.

Due to the acquisition of EPDM business and Syngenta's material protection business by the Group, as of the end of the second quarter, the company’s net debt was 1.4 billion euros, an increase of 49 percentage points from the end of 2010. Operating cash flow more than tripled to EUR 212 million, demonstrating the company's strong operating results.

Regional performance

Compared with the same period of last year, sales in the second quarter of the Asia-Pacific region reached 492 million euros, an increase of 19%, accounting for 22% of the group's total sales. China, India and South Korea have strong performances.

In the second quarter of the year, sales in the German market increased by 26% year-on-year, achieving a performance of 411 million euros, which accounted for 18% of the group's total sales.

Sales in the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South America) rose 22% year-on-year to 522 million euros, accounting for 23% of the group's total sales.

LANXESS Greater China Performance

LANXESS Greater China continued its strong growth momentum in the second quarter, with quarterly sales growth of nine percentage points to 229 million euros. This is the best quarterly performance of Lanxess Greater China so far. Excluding product line adjustments and exchange rate changes, sales increased by 14.3% year-on-year. In the first half of 2011, sales of LANXESS Greater China reached 453 million euros.

With the increase in product prices and the increase in market demand, LANXESS Greater China has overcome the pressure of rising raw material costs and continues to maintain a rising trend. “Because of the company's ambitious growth strategy and excellent product portfolio, we once again achieved strong growth in our quarterly results,” said Mr. Ke Maoting, CEO of LANXESS Greater China. “The wave of motorization and urbanization are global The trend has brought more opportunities for the development of our high-performance rubber, engineering plastics and inorganic pigments businesses, and all three business units have achieved good performance during the quarter. Due to strong market demand, the high-quality industrial intermediates business unit It also achieved rapid growth."

LANXESS recently made a series of investments in China to expand and consolidate its position in the Chinese market. In July of this year, LANXESS invested 30 million euros in the construction of a new leather chemical plant in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. The new plant will have a designed capacity of 50,000 metric tons per year and is expected to be put into operation in the first half of 2013. In the same month, the LANXESS Wuxi plant announced the official completion of the third high-tech engineering plastics production line with an investment of 10 million euros. Its high-tech plastic products, Durethan and Pocan, will have an annual production capacity of 40,000 tons. Raised to 60,000 tons. Last week, LANXESS officially opened a technology center in Qingdao, Shandong Province to serve the beverage industry in China. The center aims to provide customers with analytical, technical and consulting services, and provides tailor-made solutions around the LANXESS flagship product, vedragin, which is used as a fungicide for non-alcoholic beverages and wines.

Performance of each sector

High-performance polymer segment sales increased by 37% year-on-year to 1.3 billion euros. The price of products increased by 29% over the same period of last year and successfully offset the increase in the prices of raw materials, especially butadiene and isobutylene products. In addition, strong market demand has driven sales growth, and the successful acquisition of the EPDM business also brought in 80 million euros of revenue for the company. In the second quarter, both the company's synthetic rubber and high-tech engineering plastics businesses benefited from the growth in the tire and automotive industries. The profit before tax depreciation and amortization in the normal business area of ​​this segment increased by 40% to 229 million euros.

In order to better serve the motorization trend, the LANXESS Group's recent expansion project in Orange, Texas, was completed and put into production to produce an antimony-based butadiene rubber. This product is a new generation of high-performance "green tires." The essential part.

Driven by sales volume and price growth, sales of high-quality intermediate business segment reached 395 million euros in the second quarter, an increase of 14% year-on-year. The rising cost of raw materials was completely transferred. The profit before tax depreciation and amortization within the normal business scope of this segment was 65 million euros, which was the highest level of last year. Both the high-quality industrial intermediates and the Saltigo business unit benefit from the strong agrochemical market demand, especially in the field of bactericide precursors.

The second quarter sales of the high-performance chemicals segment totaled 561 million euros, a year-on-year increase of 5%. Each of its business units has shifted its rising raw material costs. The successful acquisition of the Darmex Group in Latin America and Syngenta's material protection business also contributed positively to the development of this segment of the business. The profit before tax depreciation and amortization in the normal business scope of this segment was 95 million euros, an increase of 13% over the same period of last year. Affected by the global urbanization process and the trend of motorization, the revenue growth of inorganic pigments and rubber chemicals business units is the strongest.

Outlook

“Our product demand is still very strong, and all factories are operating at a very high capacity utilization rate,” said Dr. He Deman, Chairman of LANXESS Global’s Board of Directors. “In view of this, we are increasing the Group’s strong performance in the first half of the year. Annual profit forecast."

The profit before tax, depreciation and amortization of LANXESS's regular business in 2010 was 918 million euros, and this year's figure is expected to increase by about 20%.

As the U.S. dollar continues to fall, as well as the high sovereign debt crises in Europe and the United States, potential crises remain.

In the second half of this year, raw material and energy prices will continue to rise, but LANXESS will continue to stick to its strategy of “price is better than sales”.

Dr. He Deman added: "Because of our correct decision-making and the concerted efforts of all employees, we have proved that we can respond quickly to any changes in the market and respond effectively."

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