Chemie
After Syensqo, the former parent company Solvay has now also announced that it expects a sharp decline in profits in 2024. Investors didn’t really know what to think. The stock price on Wednesday morning looked like a game of higher-lower.
Solvay expects a decline in gross profit (EBITDA) of between 10 and 20 percent by 2024. The company came up with this warning during the presentation of the 2023 annual results. With this, the Belgian chemical group followed in the footsteps of Syensqo, which was split from Solvay at the end of last year. Syensqo assumes a profit decline of between 5 and 15 percent.
Solvay, which focuses on the production of basic chemicals such as soda but also focuses on the refining of rare earth metals, posted annual results that are lower than in 2022. Turnover fell by 12.6 percent to 4.88 billion euros, while net profit fell by just over 20 percent to 588 million euros. As with Syensqo, economic uncertainty is weighing on Solvay’s operations. Solvay CEO Philippe Kehren says he sees signs that the second half of the year will bring improvements.
Solvay ensures that shareholders do not feel anything about the poor results. It has a dividend of 2.43 euros per share in store. Compared to the stock price, this equates to a dividend yield of almost 10 percent.(pse)
