MVV Energie "still on course for the future"

The Mannheim-based energy company MVV Energie (WKN: A0H52F, ISIN: DE000A0H52F5) increased its sales year-on-year by 6 percent to Euro 3.2 billion in the first nine months of its current 2012/13 financial year (1 October 2012 - 30 June 2013). Operating earnings (adjusted EBIT) for the same period decreased by Euro 7 million to Euro 219 million. When presenting its 9-month results in Mannheim on Thursday, the Group nevertheless confirmed the outlook for the 2012/13 financial year as a whole published in February 2013. From an operating perspective, MVV Energie expects its sales to slightly exceed the previous year’s figure and its adjusted EBIT to fall around 5 percent short of the figure of Euro 223 million reported for the 2011/12 financial year.

Positive developments were reported in particular for sales generated from directly marketing renewable energies and the nationwide energy sales business. Dr. Georg Müller, CEO of the SDAX-listed group of companies, commented that "MVV Energie, with its broad-based, sustainability-focused business portfolio, is seizing competitive opportunities along the entire energy industry value chain, and that in a difficult market climate. At the same time, we too have been unable to escape the far-reaching implications of the fundamental transformation in the overall energy industry."

The company CEO pointed out that developments in electricity prices and generation margins, so-called spreads, on the energy markets were now affecting earnings at the Mannheim-based energy company more closely and were placing an increasingly marked burden on its earnings performance. "With our long-term marketing strategy, we have so far managed to limit the effects of this development. We largely offset these effects by enhancing efficiency, cutting costs and generating growth, especially in renewable energies". Given the persistently weak clean dark spread, proprietary electricity generation volumes were now being marketed almost exclusively at low price levels. This negative trend had been exacerbated by costs incurred for emission rights, which have had to be purchased since the beginning of the year. According to Dr. Müller, this factor had left its mark on energy generation earnings throughout the energy industry, and thus also at the MVV Energie Group.

In parallel, the Mannheim energy company is pressing ahead with consistently implementing its MVV 2020 corporate strategy. By the end of the decade, the company will have invested three billion euros in renewable energies, energy efficiency based on cogeneration and environmentally-friendly district heating, and maintaining and modernising its existing grids and plants. Comments Dr. Müller: "We acted early to realign our strategy and are now reaping initial benefits from our investment programme." The new wind farms and the biomethane plant in Klein Wanzleben, where operations began in the current financial year, are now contributing proprietary earnings for the first time. The major projects in the UK, where construction work is progressing on schedule, will take up to two years to reach this stage. The new energy from waste plant in the south-western city of Plymouth and the biomass cogeneration plant in Ridham Dock south east of London are set to launch operations in the course of the 2014/15 financial year.

MVV Energie is thus maintaining a high pace of investment. In the first nine months of its current financial year alone, i.e. between October 2012 and June 2013, the Group invested Euro 256 million, and thus Euro 60 million, or over 30 percent, more than in the previous year’s period. ”We are making targeted investments in ensuring supply reliability, protecting the climate and the environment and boosting our company's earnings strength - in the interests of our customers, our shareholders and our employees. As an energiser of the future, we are consistently building on renewable energies, cogeneration and energy efficiency." This transformation would nevertheless cost money and take time. It would also require a reliable energy industry and political framework. "All in all, we are still firmly on course for the future", concluded Dr. Müller.