MOSCOW (MRC) -- After a good year in 2015, Wacker Chemie AG expects continued growth in sales and operating result during the current year, said the producer on its site.
This was underscored by CEO Rudolf Staudigl at the Munich-based chemical company’s 2016 Annual Shareholders’ Meeting. "We want to lift our sales by a low-single-digit percentage this year and estimate that EBITDA, adjusted to exclude special income, will climb by 5 to 10 percent," said Staudigl in a speech to some 1,100 shareholders at the International Congress Center in Munich. In the first quarter of 2016, WACKER posted substantial quarter-over-quarter gains in both sales and adjusted EBITDA.
In his speech, Staudigl gave details of the company’s strategic alignment in the years ahead. "2016 marks a turning point for Wacker," explained the CEO. "We have completed our new polysilicon site at Charleston in the US state of Tennessee, and will be ramping up the facilities there to full capacity this year. With the site complete, capital expenditures will decline significantly in 2016 and in the coming years. In the future, our investments will focus on facilities for manufacturing intermediate and downstream products at our chemical divisions. As a result, our cash flow will increase substantially and our net financial debt will decline further."
For 2015, Wakcer is distributing a total of EUR99.4 million in dividends to its shareholders, compared with its payout of EUR74.5 million for the previous year. The dividend per dividend-bearing share amounts to EUR2.00 after EUR1.50 the year before. The Executive and Supervisory Boards’ other proposals were also adopted by large majorities.
As MRC wrote previously, in 2013, Wacker Chemie AG officially launched its new production plant for ethylene-vinyl-acetate copolymer (EVA) dispersions at its Ulsan site in South Korea. The additional 40,000 tonnes from the second reactor line increases the site's EVA-dispersion capacity to a total of 90,000 tonnes per year. The production capacity of the site has, thus, almost doubled, making the plant complex one of the biggest of its kind in South Korea.
Wacker Chemie AG is a worldwide operating company in the chemical business, founded 1914. The company is controlled by the Wacker-family holding more than 50 percent of the shares. The corporation is operating more than 25 production sites in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The product range includes silicone rubbers, polymer products like ethylene vinyl acetate redispersible polymer powder, chemical materials, polysilicon and wafers for semiconductor industry.
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