Corporate News

Encavis AG benefits from better weather conditions, capacity expansion and high electricity prices in 2022. Revenue and operating results already exceed the targets of the growth strategy ‘>> Fast Forward 2025’
Encavis accelerates its profitable growth with a new strategy until 2027 and aims to expand capacity to 8 gigawatts

Hamburg, 28^th March 2023 – The MDAX-listed wind and solar park operator Encavis AG (Prime Standard, ISIN: DE0006095003, ticker symbol: ECV) benefited from a significant capacity expansion, better weather conditions and exceptionally high electricity prices in 2022. The revenue and the operating earnings figures EBITDA and EBIT already exceed the target values of the growth strategy ‘>> Fast Forward 2025’. The current 2023 business year is characterised by significantly lower electricity prices. The 2023 guidance nevertheless confirms Encavis’ strong and profitable growth trend by its own resources.

The growth of the past years is to be accelerated significantly. With around 5.8 gigawatts (GW), more than 2.5 times of the current generation capacity is to be connected to the grid by the end of 2027. In addition, 2.2 GW are to be under construction by then. In order to achieve this acceleration in revenues with a highly ambitious capacity expansion under our own steam, the Supervisory Board and Executive Board propose to carry forward the profit of the past financial year in full to new account and to waive the distribution of a dividend.

In the 2022 business year, the Group increased its electricity production to around 3,133 gigawatt hours (GWh). This was almost 14% above the previous year (2,755 GWh). Revenue amounted to EUR 487.3 million. This includes revenue of around EUR 24.9 million, which were skimmed off by the electricity price cap systems implemented throughout Europe. In operational terms, this results in a revenue of EUR 462.5 million - an increase of 39% compared to the previous year's figure of EUR 332.7 million. The annual revenue in 2022 thus already exceeds the target of the growth strategy ‘>> Fast Forward 2025’ of EUR > 440 million by more than 5%.

Operating earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (operating EBITDA) were EUR 350.0 million, up 37% year-on-year (EUR 256.4 million), already exceeding the growth strategy target of ‘>> Fast Forward 2025’ of EUR > 330 million by more than 6%.

This leads to an increase in results from operating activities (operating EBIT) to EUR 198.3 million. Here too, Encavis exceeds the 2022 guidance (EUR > 185 million) by more than 7% and increases its EBIT by 33% year-on-year (EUR 149.1 million).

Overall, Encavis achieved significantly improved operating earnings per share (EPS) of EUR 0.60 for the 2022 financial year - an increase of exactly 25% on the previous year's figure of EUR 0.48 per share.

Particularly pleasing is the enormously strong increase in operating cash flow to EUR 327.2 million, which not only exceeds the previous year's figure of EUR 251.9 million by EUR 75.3 million or around 30%, but also exceeds the 2022 guidance of EUR > 280 million by around 17%.

"Stern Energy S.p.A., which is now fully consolidated, is also making a significant contribution to the pleasing revenue and earnings development and will continue to grow strongly in the coming years," said Mario Schirru, CIO/COO of Encavis AG. "Stern Energy is a very essential component of the further development of our business model. We now also have the know-how to offer our industrial customers further services related to electricity supply. Moreover, and in times of volatile electricity prices, this stake in Stern Energy generates stable revenues from technical services."

Currently, significantly lower electricity prices are expected for the energy markets in Europe than in the previous year. However, due to the very high share of price-fixed electricity volumes and the revenue contributions of Stern Energy S.p.A., Encavis is little affected by this. Thus, for the 2023 financial year, the Management Board expects a slight decrease in revenue to a bit more than EUR 460 million, or EUR 440 million net of the electricity price caps (2022: EUR 487.3 million and EUR 462.5 million net of the electricity price caps, respectively). Operating EBITDA is expected to be more than EUR 310 million (2022: EUR 350.0 million). The Group expects an operating EBIT of more than EUR 185 million (2022: EUR 198.3 million). For the operating cash flow, the Group expects a figure of more than EUR 280 million (2022: EUR 327.2 million). Operating earnings per share, on the other hand, are expected to be more than EUR 0.60, slightly exceeding the previous year's figure (2022: EUR 0.60). Overall, the Group remains fully on its chosen growth path.

"In this year of sharp declines in electricity prices across Europe, the resilience of the Encavis business model becomes evident. With electricity prices between 30% and 50% lower than last year, we expect revenue to decline by only around 5%. In the current year, we even want to exceed the earnings per share, which were characterised by the high electricity prices of the previous year," says Dr Christoph Husmann, Spokesman of the Management Board and CFO.

Direct demand for green electricity from industrial customers is increasing. Commercial property owners and other investor groups are more and more looking for green investments. In the future, Encavis will increasingly address the needs of these market participants when expanding its portfolio, thus making an even stronger contribution to the realisation of the energy transition. On this basis, Encavis plans to significantly accelerate its growth path. By 2027, the Group aims to enlarge the total generation capacity up to 8 GW, of which 5.8 GW should already be connected to the grid by then. These are then expected to generate revenue of around EUR 800 million and an operating EBITDA of EUR 520 million with an operating cash flow of EUR 450 million. This accelerated growth is to be achieved from cash flow, from the utilisation of the Group's balance sheet debt capacity and from financing partners’ funds. To finance this significantly increased growth, the Management Board and the Supervisory Board will propose to the Annual General Meeting to carry forward the full amount of last year's profit to new account in order to strengthen the Group's further growth from its own resources. The equity ratio was around 28% at year-end 2022 and is expected to remain higher than 24%.

"We are enabling our shareholders to benefit from the increased returns in the Renewable Energy market through the reinvestment of operating cash flow," explains Dr Christoph Husmann. He adds: "Given the recent turmoil in the global financial markets, we need to focus particularly on our own strengths and cannot rely on the provision of external capital to accelerate our strong growth."

The Annual General Shareholders Meeting (AGM) of the Company is scheduled for 1 June 2023, at the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce, in the form of an attendance-only event.

About ENCAVIS:
Encavis AG (Prime Standard; ISIN: DE0006095003; ticker symbol: ECV) is a producer of electricity from Renewable Energies listed on the MDAX of Deutsche Börse AG. As one of the leading independent power producers (IPP), ENCAVIS acquires and operates (onshore) wind farms and solar parks in twelve European countries. The plants for sustainable energy production generate stable yields through guaranteed feed-in tariffs (FIT) or long-term power purchase agreements (PPA). The Encavis Group's total generation capacity currently adds up to around 3.5 gigawatts (GW), of which more than 2.1 GW belongs to the Encavis AG, which corresponds to a total saving of around 0.8 million tonnes of CO₂ per year stand-alone for the Encavis AG. Within the Encavis Group, Encavis Asset Management AG offers fund services to institutional investors.

Encavis is a signatory of the UN Global Compact as well as of the UN PRI network. Encavis AG's environmental, social and governance performance has been awarded by two of the world's leading ESG rating agencies. MSCI ESG Ratings awarded the corporate ESG performance with their "A" level and ISS ESG with their "Prime" label.

Additional information can be found on www.encavis.com 

Contact:
ENCAVIS AG         
Jörg Peters          
Head of Corporate Communications & IR    
Tel.: + 49 40 37 85 62 242      
E-Mail: joerg.peters@encavis.com