EANS-News: Nordex: substantial increase in sales in 2012 and foundations laid for profitable growth (with document)

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Subtitle: • Sales up 17% to EUR 1,075 million • Earnings burdened by
EUR 75 million due to structural adjustments in China and the United
States • Increase in EBIT before exceptionals to EUR 14 million • 50%
increase in order backlog to EUR 1,049 million • Further sales and
EBIT growth expected

Financial Figures/Balance Sheet

Hamburg (euro adhoc) - According to its provisional consolidated
financial statements for 2012, sales of the Nordex Group (ISIN:
DE000A0D6554) rose by 17.3 percent to EUR 1,075.3 million (previous
year: EUR 916.8 million), thus matching the Management Board's
forecast. At EUR 14 million, earnings before interest, taxes and
exceptionals were also in line with the Board's expectations
(previous year: loss of EUR 7.6 million).

The top-line growth resulted primarily from strong business in the
EMEA re-gion, where sales grew by an above-average 28 percent to EUR
868.9 million (previous year: EUR 678.6 million). The main drivers
were a strong order book at the beginning of the year and growing
demand in the course of the year to-gether with an increase of more
than 20 percent in the service business. All told, Nordex's European
business more than made up for the flat sales of its US subsidiary
(EUR 191.6 million; previous year: EUR 200.7 million) and the decline
in Chinese sales (EUR 14.8 million; previous year EUR 37.5 million).

In response to the sustained pressure on earnings caused by
insufficient ca-pacity utilisation in America and China together with
the decline in new busi-ness in these two regions, the Management
Board decided to reorganise the Company's activities in the United
States and China. On the one hand, this in-volved the discontinued
production of the rotor blade facility in Dongying, China, which
resulted in a charge of EUR 6.5 million. On the other hand, Nor-dex
is planning adjusting capacities at the assembly plants in the light
of ex-pected order intake. The exceptional expenses arising in
connection with the structural adjustments in the United States and
China amounted to EUR 75.0 million. Of this, the United States
accounted for EUR 44.8 million and China for EUR 30 million.

The improvement in earnings before interest, taxes and exceptionals
to EUR 14.0 million (previous year: loss of EUR 7.6 million) was
mainly due to econo-mies of scale. Moreover, Nordex was able to lower
its structural costs by just under EUR 8 million despite rising
business volume. Personnel costs and, hence, the cost-cutting
programme adopted in 2011 yielded notable effects in this respect.
The loss at the EBIT level after exceptionals amounted to EUR 61.1
million (previous year: loss of EUR 27.0 million). After interest and
taxes, a consolidated loss of EUR 94.4 million was sustained
(previous year: loss of EUR 49.5 million).

The equity ratio contracted to 26.2 percent (previous year: 36.6
percent) as a result of impairments and exceptionals. On the other
hand, consolidated cash and cash equivalents rose by just under 30
percent to EUR 274.8 million (pre-vious year: EUR 212.0 million).
Cash flow from operating activities also climbed significantly to EUR
141.1 million (previous year: net outflow of EUR 47.3 million) due to
effective working capital management. This is also re-flected in the
improvement in the working capital ratio to 8.7 percent (previous
year: 27.9 percent).

The Company's good performance in the EMEA sales region was also
re-flected in new business. All in all, Nordex achieved record order
intake of EUR 1,268 million in 2012 (previous year: EUR 1,107
million). The Europe and South Africa accounted for 94 percent of new
orders. As a result, the Nordex Group was able to outperform the
industry-wide trend and increase its backlog of firmly financed
orders by over 50 percent to EUR 1,049 million (previous year:: EUR
698 million). In addition, Nordex gained further conditional orders
valued at roughly EUR 1.4 billion (previous year: EUR 1.3 billion).

On this basis, Nordex assumes that it will be able to achieve further
growth this year. The Management Board expects sales in a range of
EUR 1.2 billion to EUR 1.3 billion in 2013. Roughly 80 percent of
this sales target is already covered by firm order backlog. Based on
the reorganisation measures initiated in the United States and China
as well as the targeted improvements in project execution and the
cuts in product costs already initiated, the Management Board expects
the EBIT margin to widen to 2 to 3 percent. Moreover, is the Board
hopes to again achieve a net cash inflow from operating activities in
2013.

The key figures published today are preliminary. The final financial
statements will probably be published on 25 March 2013, following
completion of the an-nual audit.

Attachments with Announcement:
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Further inquiry note:
Ralf Peters
Head of Corporate Communication
Tel.: +49 (0)40 300 30 15 22
rpeters@nordex-online.com

end of announcement euro adhoc
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company: Nordex SE
Langenhorner Chaussee 600
D-22419 Hamburg
phone: +49 (0)40 30030-1000
FAX: +49 (0)40 30030-1101
mail: info@nordex-online.com
WWW: http://www.nordex-online.com
sector: Alternative energy
ISIN: DE000A0D6554, DE0000A0D66L2
indexes: TecDAX, CDAX, HDAX, Prime All Share, Technology All Share, ÖkoDAX
stockmarkets: free trade: Berlin, München, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart,
regulated dealing/prime standard: Frankfurt
language: English