SGL Carbon remains on track with first half 2022 results

Despite uncertain general conditions in the first six months 2022, SGL Carbon’s (Wiesbaden, Germany) business model is proving its resilience, the company reports. After €270.9 million in Q1 2022, SGL Carbon was able to increase sales to €278.9 million in Q2. Accordingly, sales for the first half of 2022 amount to €549.8 million, which corresponds to an increase of €53.1 million or 10.7% compared to the same period of the previous year.

SGL Carbon says the increase in sales was driven in particular by customers in the semiconductor industry and growth in the industrial applications market segment. Demand from the automotive and chemical industries was also encouraging.

EBITDApre, one of the group’s key performance indicators (KPIs), improved by €16.2 million (+22.6%) to €87.9 million (H1 2021: €71.7 million). Consequently, the EBITDApre margin increased from 14.4% to 16.0%. In addition to the higher use of production capacities due to higher sales, the improvement in earnings was also driven by the largely successful passing on of higher raw material and energy costs to customers as well as savings from the transformation program.

EBITDApre does not include positive one-off effects and non-recurring items totaling €10.6 million (H1 2021: € -5.2 million), the company notes. As a result, EBIT in H1 2022 is reported to have increased significantly from €38.3 million to €69.6 million. Taking into account the financial result of € -16.6 million (H1 2021: € -14.0 million), consolidated net income for the first six months of the current fiscal year amounted to €48.8 million, compared to €17.9 million within the same period the prior year.

 

Business units

With an increase in sales of €22.2 million (+10.0%) to €243.4 million, the
Graphite Solutions (GS) business unit made a major contribution to SGL
Carbon’s sales growth. In particular, continued high demand from customers in the semiconductor sector, which represents approximately one third of the segment’s sales, led to positive business development. EBITDApre at GS improved by 22.7% to €54.0 million.

The Process Technology (PT) business unit benefited from a good order
situation in the chemical industry in H1 2022, increasing sales to €49.2 million (H1 2021: €40.8 million). EBITDApre also improved from €0.1
million in the prior year’s first half to €4.1 million in H1 2022.

The Carbon Fibers (CF) business unit also benefited in the first half of 2022 from final deliveries to a major automotive manufacturer whose contract expired as scheduled on June 30, 2022. Segment sales increased by 5.8% year-on-year to €176.0 million. In contrast, this business unit’s EBITDApre decreased by €4.2 million to €28.2 million despite orders and successful price increases. It shouldbe noted that CF was impacted by energy derivatives for price hedging in the amount of €9.2 million in Q1 2022.

With an increase in sales of 15.6% to €69.6 million, the Composite Solutions
(CS) business unit continued its upward trend. Customized component solutions for the automotive industry improved its EBITDApre from
€5.7 million in the first half of 2021 to the current €9.7 million, based in particular on price and volume effects.

On June 7, SGL Carbon raised its sales and earnings guidance for fiscal year 2022.