LEVERKUSEN (dpa-AFX) - Lanxess AG (LNXSF.PK), a German specialty chemicals company, on Thursday registered a wider loss for the fourth-quarter, reflecting reduced sales, weaker demand, and higher costs, due to weak market environment.
The company intends to reduce its annual costs by around 150 million euros from 2025 including 870 job cuts, 460 of which will be in Germany. The agreements have already been signed for most of the job cuts, the company said in a statement.
For the three-month period, the Group posted a net loss of 753 million euros, compared with a loss of 21 million euros, recorded for the same period last year.
Loss from continuing operations moved up to 577 million euros from previous year's loss of 14 million euros.
Loss from discontinued operations stood at 176 million euros as against a loss of 7 million euros in 2022.
EBITDA pre exceptionals or adjusted EBITDA plunged to 97 million euros from 175 million euros a year ago.
Sales slipped to 1.436 billion euros from last year's 1.973 million euros.
For the full year, the Board will pay a dividend of 0.10 euro per share, lesser than last year's 1.05 euros.
Looking ahead, Lanxess expects challenging market environment to continue at least in the first half. The Group consequently foresees no improvement in the first-quarter and expects EBITDA pre exceptionals of up to 100 million euros.
Starting from the second-quarter, the company anticipates a moderate increase in sales volumes.
For full year as a whole, LANXESS expects a moderate increase in EBITDA pre exceptional.
Matthias Zachert, CEO of Lanxess, said that for the full-year 2024, the company however expects earnings to be significantly below the average level of previous years.
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