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Nordex Group 2020

Despite the pandemic, Nordex continues to grow and increases sales to EUR 4.65 billion in 2020

Nordex is one of the largest developers and manufacturers of wind turbines in the onshore segment. The company was established in 1985 and has approximately 8,500 employees worldwide. As one of the world's largest wind turbine manufacturers, the Nordex Group offers high-yield, cost-efficient wind turbines under the Acciona Windpower and Nordex brands that enable long-term and economical power generation from wind energy in all geographic and climatic conditions.

The company has manufacturing capacities with factories in Germany, Spain, Brazil, the United States, India and Mexico. The product portfolio is focused on onshore turbines in the 4 to 5.X MW class, which are made for the market requirements of countries with limited space and regions with limited grid capacity.

In 2020, the company increased its production to around 6 GW and boosted installations and consolidated sales. Despite the coronavirus pandemic circumstances, in 2020 the Nordex Group achieved an order intake of more than 6.0 GW, slightly less than the volume of 6.2 GW in 2019. Geographically, these orders account for 62% for Europe, 19% for North and Latin America and the rest for other countries. According to the Company´s Press Releases, consolidated sales of the Nordex Group totalled EUR 4.65 billion and increased by almost 41% from 3.3 billion in 2019. In 2018 consolidated sales of EUR 2.5 represented a year-on-year increase of 32%.

Segmentally, the Nordex Group achieved the following results: the Projects segment recorded a decrease of 4.5% of order intake during 2020. The company received wind turbine orders intake of the Project Segment with a total volume of EUR 4.25 million compared to EUR 4.42 million in 2019 and EUR 3.64 million in 2018. At the end of 2020 the new wind turbine order book of the Project segment decreased by 4.3% from EUR 5.5 million in 2019 to EUR 5.3 million in 2020, compared to EUR 3.9 million in 2018, and a year-on-year increase of 43% from 2018 to 2019.

Sales in the Service segment rose by 8.5 percent to EU 437.6 million compared to EUR 403.2 million in 2019 and EUR 342.6 million in 2018, thus contributing 9.4 percent to overall sales. The Nordex Group serviced 8,383 wind turbines worldwide with a total output of 21.0 GW compared to 7,760 wind turbines worldwide with total output of 19.6 GW in 2019, most of them on long-term service contracts.

The order book in the Service segment rose by a further 11.1 % to EUR 2,819.3 million compared to EUR 2,536.5 million in 2019 and EUR 2,217.7 million in 2018.

The order intake in the Service segment decreased by 12.6% from EUR 695.4 million in 2019 to EUR 607.6 in 2020. The order intake amounted to EUR 543.1 million in 2018.

In 2020 Nordex installed almost 1500 wind turbines with an output of 5.5 GW in 23 countries compared to 938 wind turbines with an output of 3.1 GW in 21 countries in 2019. Order intake benefited from the higher-margin Delta4000 turbine technology, which performs particularly well.

Under challenging pandemic circumstances, in 2020 Nordex achieved EUR 4.65 billion of consolidated sales, which is slightly above the forecast figure of approximately EUR 4.4 billion. However, the Company was forced to accept significant additional costs which had a significant impact on earnings in 2020.

The company achieved an EBITDA margin of 2% compared with 3.8% in 2019, 4.1% in 2018 and 6.5% in 2017. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) decreased by 24.1% and amounted to EUR 94.0 million in 2020, compared to EUR 123.8 million in 2019.

The Nordex Group achieved a working capital ratio as a percentage of consolidated sales of minus 6.3% in 2020, compared to minus 9.1% in 2019. This means that this ratio is well below the target level of under minus 4%. This positive performance is largely due to the strong order intake and the group's efficient working capital management.

As mentioned above, the company was forced to run significant capital expenditure in 2020 and invested EUR 162.9 million, which was slightly less than the volume of EUR 172.5 million in 2019 (EUR 112.8 million in 2018). Capital expenditure mainly focused on the expansion of rotor blade production in Mexico, India and Brazil.

Free cash flow amounted to EUR -120.4 million in 2020 compared to EUR -126.0 million in 2019 and EUR 44.0 million in 2018.
At the end of 2020 the Nordex Group's liquidity was considerably higher than in the previous year at EUR 778.4 million compared to EUR 510.0 million in 2019. Conversely, net debt fell to EUR 40.9 million as per 31 December 2020, compared to EUR 84.0 million at the end of 2019.

In 2021 the Nordex Group is expecting the sales of EUR 4.7 billion to EUR 5.2 billion and EBITDA margin of 4.0% to 5.5%, and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on its business to be reduced from the second quarter of 2021.

Strategic targets which the Company is aiming for in 2022 are sales of around EUR 5 billion and EBITDA margin of 8 percent.