MVV remains successful on its #climatepositive course

“With our #climatepositive course, we are showing how to turn climate protection into business success”, explained Dr. Georg Müller, Chief Executive Officer of Mannheim-based energy company MVV Energie AG (ISIN: DE000A0H52F5; WKN: A0H52F), upon publication of the results for the first quarter of the 2024 financial year (1 October 2023 – 31 December 2023). MVV had posted a good start to its new financial year.

At around Euro 2.2 billion, MVV’s adjusted sales in the first three months of the 2024 financial year were significantly higher than in the previous year (Euro 1.6 billion). This increase is largely due to the settlement of forward transactions that had still been concluded at a higher level of electricity and gas prices.

MVV’s adjusted EBIT amounted to Euro 124 million in the period under report. As expected, it thus fell significantly short of the previous year’s figure of Euro 223 million. Commented Dr. Müller: “Our strong earnings performance in the previous year’s quarter was chiefly driven by one-off special items, such as the proceeds from the sale of our Czech activities and an exceptional performance in the Commodity Services business field, i.e. marketing renewable energies and trading. We will not see additional revenues on this scale in the current 2024 financial year, and thus also not in the first quarter. Viewed overall, however, we posted a good operative start to the 2024 financial year.” Three-month earnings benefited in particular from higher earnings contributions from proprietary wind turbines, as well as from higher electricity revenues in the environmental energy business. By contrast, earnings were adversely affected by lower electricity production due to inspection measures, a factor which led to higher volumes of electricity being procured from the upstream grid.

New reporting structure from 2024 financial year and change of external auditor
To account for the disposals of shareholdings in recent financial years and the further strategic development of the energy company, MVV also amended its reporting structure from the start of the 2024 financial year and discontinued the Strategic Investments segment. From 1 October 2023, MVV is now basing its reporting along the value chain on its four segments of Customer Solutions, New Energies, Generation and Infrastructure and Other Activities.

With regard to the company’s forthcoming Annual General Meeting on 8 March, the Executive and Supervisory Boards will propose that this should elect KPMG AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main, as the auditor and group auditor for the 2024 financial year. Performed for the past 15 years by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the audit of the financial statements had been newly tendered for the 2024 financial year.

Forecast confirmed
From an operating perspective, MVV continues without amendment to expect that its adjusted EBIT for the 2024 financial year will be within a range of +/– 10 % of Euro 400 million. Dr. Müller: “At our Annual Results Press Conference, we already announced that, due to one-off items in the past financial year, we would see a reduction in our earnings in the 2024 financial year. This expectation has been confirmed in the first quarter of 2024, as has our statement that, based on longer-term comparisons, we would be able to achieve a higher level of earnings at the MVV Group in the 2024 financial year.”

Greater resilience due to updated #climatepositive course
MVV is using the higher level of earnings generated from its business performance to update its strategy and become #climatepositive by 2035. To this end, the energy company is pressing consistently ahead with reaching its climate protection targets across all components of the Mannheim Model:

To implement the heat transition, for example, at the beginning of the quarter under report MVV launched operations in October 2023 with what is Germany’s largest river heat pump integrated into a district heat system. This had been built by the power plant Großkraftwerk Mannheim on its premises on behalf of MVV. It marks a further milestone in fully converting district heat in Mannheim and the region to green energy sources, a process which MVV will complete by 2030. In addition, the company is increasing the density of its district heat grid and further expanding its range of decentralised heat solutions, and here in particular heat pumps.

For the electricity transition, the energy company has set itself the target of reaching 2,000 megawatts of green generation capacity by 2030. To achieve this, MVV is increasingly taking over domestic windfarms and solar parks developed by its Juwi subsidiary into its own portfolio. A solar park capable of supplying 2,600 households is currently being built in Osterburken in Baden-Württemberg, for example. Upon completion, this will be taken over by MVV. The company is also stepping up its marketing of green electricity volumes via long-term supply contracts, referred to as power purchase agreements (PPAs). In December 2023, the company’s trading company MVV Trading concluded a procurement agreement with DB Energie to supply around 160 gigawatt hours of green electricity. This will be supplied by three new solar parks from the Group’s own project development.

With regard to its customer solutions, by 2035 MVV will exclusively offer 100-percent climate-neutral products and services, as well as gradually converting its existing customer contracts to green solutions.

“Our accelerated course of becoming #climatepositive by 2035 means that we are further extending our lead in the energy transition and permanently boosting the resilience of the MVV Group”, stressed MVV’s CEO in summary. That is also reflected in the number of employees, which was rising further in the company’s growth areas. This demonstrates once again that the heat and electricity transitions can serve not only to secure existing jobs but also to create new and attractive employment perspectives.

The complete quarterly statement is available online at www.mvv.de/investors.