Germany’s utility E.ON reported an all-time-high EUR 5.7 billion net loss for the first nine months of 2015, largely due to the impairment charges of EUR 8.3 billion recorded in the quarter ended September 30, coming from writedowns in the company’s power plants and its oil and gas division.
The company is continuing with plans to focus on the booming renewable energy as the ongoing industry crisis turned the company’s coal- and gas-powered stations unprofitable.
“The impairment charges were triggered by the significant decline in commodity and energy prices, which is mainly a result of structural changes on global energy markets and on the regulatory framework. Our operating environment remains very difficult,” E.ON’s CFO Michael Sen said.
With that in mind, E.ON is pressing on with its plans to divide its portfolio between two operationally independent entities, with the split expected to come into force in January 2016.
From 2016 onward, E.ON will focus on three core businesses: renewables, energy networks, and customer solutions, while the company’s three other businesses—power generation in and outside Europe, exploration and production, and global energy trading—will be assigned to a new, Düsseldorf-based company, called Uniper.
E.ON recorded nine-month EBITDA of EUR 5.4 billion between January 1 and September 30, 2015, an 18% drop compared to EUR 6.5 billion EBITDA reported for the first nine months of 2014.
The company has reaffirmed its forecast for full-year 2015, expecting its EBITDA to be between EUR 7 and EUR 7.6 billion and its underlying net income to be between EUR 1.4 and EUR 1.8 billion. Since the start of the year E.ON has reduced its economic net debt by EUR 5.3 billion to EUR 28.1 billion.
”We confirm our outlook for full-year 2015, in part because our operating business is making good progress. Amrumbank West and Humber Gateway wind farms in the North Sea, which together total just over 500 megawatts, are now fully operational, as is unit Berezovskaya 3, a new 800 megawatt power generating unit in Russia. This means that both E.ON and Uniper have received new and profitable assets that support their respective strategies operationally as well as financially,” Sen said.