Frankfurt: German energy giant EON confirmed its full-year forecast for 2017 yesterday, after a strong performance in the second quarter helped make up for a weak start to the year.
“We announced that we would play a strong catch-up game to make up for the slow start in the first quarter,” EON’s finance chief Marc Spieker said in a statement.
“We already largely achieved this in the second quarter. Our core business delivered strong earnings growth in the second quarter. This performance puts us on course for our forecast for full-year 2017, which we reaffirm today.”
On an adjusted basis, the Essen-based group reported bottom-line net profit of €356m ($418m) in the period from April to June, compared with a net loss of €54m in the second quarter of 2016.
In the preceding quarter, EON’s bottom line had fallen by 20 percent on a year-on-year basis. Second-quarter revenues grew to €9.1bn, up 1.0 percent compared with April to June 2016.
For the whole of 2017, EON is targeting adjusted operating profit of 2.8 to €3.1bn and adjusted net profit of between €1.2bn and €1.45bn. The group was already more than halfway to its goal in the first six months, booking adjusted net profit of €881m between January and June.
EON highlighted a strong performance in its energy grid business, driven by Sweden, the Czech Republic and Germany.
