Intanto E.ON, la principale utility energetica tedesca, annuncia che il 2009 vedrà un calo degli utili del 10% per effetto del forte calo della domanda energetica da parte degli utenti industriali.
Anche E.ON ha varato un taglio agli investimenti nell'ordine di 6 mld euro da conseguire entro il 2011.
L'EBITDA adjusted è previsto stazionario rispetto al 2008, poco sotto i 10 mld euro, con un target 2010 rivisto al ribasso a quota 11 mld euro (contro precedenti stime di 12,4 mld euro).
E.ON Says 2009 Profit Will Fall 10%; Shares Slump (Update2)
By Nicholas Comfort
March 10 (Bloomberg) --
E.ON AG, Germany’s largest utility, expects 2009 profit before writedowns to fall 10 percent from last year as the recession cuts demand for energy. The shares slumped to their lowest in 4 1/2 years.
Adjusted
net income, which E.ON uses to calculate its dividend, will decline from last year’s 5.6 billion euros ($7.12 billion), the Dusseldorf-based utility said today in a statement. Earnings in 2008 were 9 percent higher than a year earlier.
Industrial energy use is slipping in Europe’s largest economy as carmakers, chemical producers and machine makers idle plants to meet lower consumer demand for their products. That will curb E.ON’s electricity and natural-gas sales, while tighter regulation caps profit from operating power and fuel grids, the company said.
“Strategic targets have taken a battering from the economic crisis,”
Simon Flowers, an analyst at Banc of America Securities-Merrill Lynch, said today in a note. “
E.ON recognizes there may be worse to come” as 2011 power tariffs will begin to reflect lower selling prices.
E.ON
slid as much as 2.06 euros, or 10 percent, to 18.16 euros in Frankfurt trading, the lowest since May 2004. The shares traded at 18.69 euros as of 10:57 a.m. local time.
Lower Investment
The company will cut spending through 2011 by 6 billion euros to reflect “significantly more difficult” economic conditions, it said. The new investment targets mean E.ON will spend an average 10 billion euros a year through 2011.
Two-thirds of that will go toward new power plants in Russia, Slovakia, the Netherlands and Belgium, while the remainder will fund maintenance and replacement of existing generators and networks in Germany and the U.K., according to today’s release.
Adjusted earnings before interest and tax in 2009 will match last year’s level of 9.88 billion euros, before climbing to 11 billion euros in 2010, below a previous target of 12.4 billion euros, E.ON said.
That “Holy Grail” was abandoned on the slump in energy demand as well as lower-than-expected returns from purchases in Spain, France and Russia, according to BAS-ML analyst Flowers.
German power consumption fell 0.3 percent to 617 terawatt- hours last year as a “significant economic downturn” in the fourth quarter sapped earlier gains, the country’s BDEW energy industry association said last week on its
Web site.
Fourth-Quarter Results
Adjusted net income in the
three months through December gained 26 percent to 1.14 billion euros, Bloomberg calculated by subtracting nine-month earnings from full-year figures issued today. That beat the 1.04 billion-euro median estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Including writedowns, E.ON posted a 1.8 billion-euro loss in the quarter, compared with a year-earlier net income of 1.89 billion euros. Revaluing power and fuel hedging derivatives sliced full-year profit by 2.18 billion euros, while asset- related charges slashed a further 3.3 billion euros in the quarter, E.ON said.
The utility, whose U.S. division operates in Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee, said results at that unit would reflect economic “deterioration,” while regulatory intervention and a higher corporate tax rate had affected operations in Italy.
E.ON boosted generation capacity about 20 percent last year after buying
plants in France, Italy and Spain in June. Power prices in Germany, its primary market, rose to records in mid- 2008, only to drop almost 50 percent since then on lower demand.
Utilities lock in tariffs at earlier prices, meaning the electricity a client uses today is based on the traded cost of power as many as four years ago.
E.ON said last month that it would seek to cut costs by 1.5 billion euros through 2011 by reducing procurement and administration expenses. Job losses can’t be ruled out as part of the measures, the company said.