MOSCOW (MRC) -- LANXESS AG reported net income for the first quarter of EUR 25 million or EUR 0.30 per share, flat with the prior-year level, said the producer in its press release.
Sales were down by 2.5% to EUR 2 billion as the encouraging increase in volumes in all segments did not offset the drop in selling prices and negative currency effects.
Looking ahead, the company expects that the economic environment will continue to slowly recover during the remainder of the year. The company currently expects fiscal 2014 EBITDA pre exceptionals of between EUR 770 million and EUR 830 million.
For the second quarter, the company anticipates EBITDA pre exceptionals to come in at between EUR 220 million and EUR 240 million.
LANXESS also announced that it is currently developing measures to realign the company and its decision to utilize the existing authorized capital in part and to increase the share capital of the company by 10 percent, excluding the subscription rights of the shareholders.
As MRC wrote previously, last July, Lanxess celebrated the opening of its first production facility in Russia. In the new plant at the Lipetsk site, Lanxess subsidiary Rhein Chemie manufactures polymer-bound rubber additives for the markets in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), primarily for the automotive and tire industries. A production facility for the bladders used in tire production is to be added in 2016. The overall investment volume in euros amounts to a seven-digit figure.
Lanxess is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 8.3 billion in 2013 and roughly 17,300 employees in 31 countries. The company is currently represented at 52 production sites worldwide. The core business of Lanxess is the development, manufacturing and marketing of plastics, rubber, intermediates and specialty chemicals.
MRC