Following a good fourth quarter, Wacker Chemie AG achieved its sales and earnings targets for full-year 2017.
According to preliminary figures, the Munich-based chemical group’s reporting-year sales came in at €4.92bn (2016: €4.63bn), up around 6% versus 2016.
The increase was primarily due to higher volumes.
Sales grew at both chemicals and polysilicon businesses compared to the previous year.
The rise was particularly strong for silicones.
In addition to the strong business trend, the increase was supported by Wacker’s equity-accounted investment in Siltronic AG.
In the past fiscal year, Wacker did not yet receive any significant payments from insurers for the incident at the Charleston site.
Income from continuing operations climbed 40% to about €250M in 2017 (2016: €178M).
Wacker posted preliminary net income for the year of €885M(2016: €189M).
It included income of €635M from discontinued operations from Q1 2017.
This amount comprises the gain from deconsolidation of Siltronic as a Wacker Group segment and Siltronic AG’s net income in the first quarter of 2017.
"Thanks to very robust customer demand at both our chemical and polysilicon businesses, we continued to expand sales and earnings in 2017,” said Group CEO Rudolf Staudigl in Munich on Thursday.
"We more than compensated for the marked headwinds caused by higher raw-material prices and by the euro’s strength in the second half-year.
"Looking back at the full year, we met or surpassed our projections for every performance indicator.”
