MOSCOW (MRC) -- German specialty chemicals maker Wacker Chemie said its core profit rose by 14 percent in the fourth quarter, helped by a recovery in prices and demand for polysilicon, a key material it supplies to the solar industry, said Reuters.
Wacker Chemie said its preliminary fourth-quarter earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) came in at 180 million euros (USD203 million), beating the 177 million average forecast in a Reuters poll.
"The main reason for the higher earnings was the year-on-year improvement in prices for solar silicon," the company said in a statement, adding the business division continued to run its production facilities at full capacity in the fourth quarter.
Sales in the period rose about 10 percent to 1.19 billion euros, also higher than the 1.15 billion analyst forecast. Shares in Wacker Chemie were indicated 0.2 percent higher, the only gainers among Germany's mid-sized stocks, according to pre-market data.
The company is the world's second-biggest maker of polysilicon after U.S.-based Hemlock Semiconductor, and the business unit accounted for more than half of the group's fourth-quarter core profit.
Prices for polysilicon have recovered strongly over 2014, boosted by strong demand for solar panels in China and ending a margin squeeze in which prices tumbled to less than USD20 per kg in 2013 from a 2008 peak of almost USD400.
Manufacturing a wide range of products, Wacker Chemie also supplies raw material for half of the world's chewing gum.
As MRC reported earlier, Wacker Chemie AG 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, 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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