EANS-News: Oxea GmbH / Trading Update: Oxea reports solid operating performance for the first two months of 2012

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Company Information/Financial Figures/Balance Sheet

Luxembourg (euro adhoc) - Oxea, a leading global supplier of Oxo
Intermediates and Oxo Derivatives, today announced interim trading
results for the two month period ending February 29, 2012.

Oxea's operating performance in the first quarter of 2012 improved
compared to the fourth quarter of 2011 despite significant raw
materials price increases at the beginning of 2012. Based on
currently available information our average monthly:

* volume increased by 8.1%;
* revenue increased by 9.5%; and
* average monthly Adjusted EBITDA increased by 19.2%.

This improvement in our operating performance has been driven in part
by restocking activities by our customers along the value chain
reversing the destocking trend seen in the fourth quarter of 2011.

For the two months ended February 29, 2012 our revenues were EUR239.7
million and our Adjusted EBITDA was EUR28.2 million. We estimate
that our results for the month ending March 31, 2012 should be
consistent with January and February 2012 results.

Oxo industry growth continues to be strong, consistent with the
broader global chemical industry development. We estimate that
global demand for Oxo chemicals is expected to increase over the
period from 2012 to 2015. For more information on Oxea and the Oxo
chemical industry please refer to
http://www.oxea-chemicals.com/business/overview.html .

Oxea is a global manufacturer of Oxo Intermediates and Derivatives
such as alcohols, polyols, carboxylic acids, specialty esters and
amines. These products are sold in the merchant market (where sales
are to third party customers) and used for the production of
high-quality coatings, lubricants, cosmetic and pharmaceutical
products, flavourings and fragrances, printing inks and plastics. In
2011, Oxea generated revenue of about EUR1.5 billion with its 1,365
employees in Europe, the Americas and Asia.

Oxea remain opportunistic with alternative uses of our liquidity and
may, depending on market conditions and other factors, consider
and/or opt to pursue alternative bond and other debt transactions,
including refinancings, recapitalizations or other funding options.

Please note:

"Average monthly" as set forth above means the average of the
relevant figures for January and February 2012 as compared to the
average of such figures for the fourth quarter of 2011.

This press release contains financial information regarding the
businesses and assets of OXEA S.à r.l. (the "Company") and its
consolidated subsidiaries (the "Group"). Such financial information
has not been audited, reviewed or verified by any independent
accounting firm. The inclusion of such financial information in this
press release or any related presentation should not be regarded as a
representation or warranty by the Company, any of its respective
affiliates, advisors or representatives or any other person as to the
accuracy or completeness of such information´s portrayal of the
financial condition or results of operations by the Group.

This press release and related presentations (including on our
website) may contain information, data and predictions about our
markets and our competitive position. While we believe this data to
be reliable, it has not been independently verified, and we make no
representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of such
information set forth in this document. Additionally, industry
publications and reports from which such information, data or
predictions may be obtained generally state that the information
contained therein has been obtained from sources believed to be
reliable but that the accuracy and completeness of such information
is not guaranteed and in some instances state that they do not assume
liability for such information. We cannot therefore assure you of the
accuracy and completeness of such information and we have not
independently verified such information. In addition, we have made
statements in this document regarding our industry and position in
the industry based on our experience and our own investigation of
market conditions. We cannot assure you that the assumptions
underlying these statements are accurate or correctly reflect the
state and development of, or our position in, the industry, and none
of our internal surveys or information has been verified by any
independent sources.

Certain statements in this document are forward-looking. By their
nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks
and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on
circumstances that may or may not occur in the future.
Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance.
These factors include, among others: the cyclical and highly variable
nature of our business and its sensitivity to changes in supply and
demand; adverse and uncertain global economic conditions; the highly
variable nature of raw materials costs and any loss of key suppliers
or supply shortages or disruptions; the competitive nature of our
industry; the ability to comply with current or future laws and
regulations relating to environmental, health and safety matters as
well as the safety of our products, related costs of maintaining
compliance and addressing liabilities as well as risks relating to
compliance with antitrust and tax laws; our reliance on a limited
number of suppliers for certain of our key raw materials; operational
risks, including the risk of environmental contamination and
potential product liability claims; operational interruptions at our
facilities due to events that are outside of our control such as
severe weather conditions, unscheduled downtimes, terrorist attacks,
natural disasters or other events that may interrupt or damage our
operations or the impact of scheduled outages on our results of
operations; the risk that our insurance coverage may not be
sufficient to cover all risks; risks relating to the global nature of
our operations, including, among others, fluctuations in exchange
rates; the loss of major customers or key customers for certain of
our products; the loss of key personnel; risks relating to
acquisitions and dispositions, including any impairment risks with
respect to historical acquisitions, our ability to successfully
integrate acquired businesses, and unexpected liabilities relating to
such acquisitions or contingent liabilities in connection with such
dispositions; the requirement to make further contributions to our
pension schemes; the failure to protect our intellectual property
rights; limitations on our ability to adjust the quality of certain
products that we manufacture; and potential conflicts of interests
with our principal shareholder.

These and other factors could adversely affect the outcome and
financial effects of the plans and events described herein.
Forward-looking statements contained in this document regarding past
trends or activities should not be taken as a representation that
such trends or activities will continue in the future. New risks can
emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict
all such risks, nor can we assess the impact of all such risks on our
business or the extent to which any risks, or combination of risks
and other factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from
those contained in any forward-looking statements. Neither the
Company nor the Group undertakes any obligation to update or revise
any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new
information, future events or otherwise. You should not place undue
reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the
date of this document.

EBITDA is defined as net income for the year before financial result,
income taxes, depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA is
defined as EBITDA adjusted to remove the effects of certain non-cash
and non-recurring expenses and charges. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA
are supplemental measures of our performance and liquidity that are
not required by or presented in accordance with IFRS. EBITDA and
Adjusted EBITDA are not measurements of our financial performance or
liquidity under IFRS and should not be considered as an alternative
to profit for the period presented, results from operating activities
or any other performance measures derived in accordance with IFRS or
as an alternative to cash flow from operating activities as a measure
of our liquidity. We believe EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA facilitate
operating performance comparisons from period to period and company
to company by eliminating potential differences caused by variations
in capital structures (affecting interest expense), tax positions
(such as the impact on periods or companies of change in effective
tax rates or net operating losses) and the age and book value and
amortization of tangible and intangible assets (which have an effect
on related depreciation expense). We also present EBITDA and Adjusted
EBITDA because we believe it these are frequently used by securities
analysts, investors and other interested parties in the evaluation of
similar issuers, the majority of which present EBITDA and Adjusted
EBITDA when reporting their results. Finally, we present EBITDA and
Adjusted EBITDA as measures of our ability to service our debt.

Further inquiry note:
Bernhard Spetsmann
Managing Director (Finance, IT)
bernhard.spetsmann@oxea-chemicals.com

Birgit Reichel
Communications/PR
birgit.reichel@oxea-chemicals.com

end of announcement euro adhoc
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company: Oxea GmbH
Otto-Roelen-Straße 3
D-46147 Oberhausen
phone: +49(0)208 693 3112
FAX: +49(0)208 693 3101
mail: birgit.reichel@oxea-chemicals.com
WWW: http://www.oxea-chemicals.com
sector: Chemicals
ISIN: XS0523636594
indexes:
stockmarkets: Open Market: Frankfurt
language: English