Meyer Burger successful in its strategic transformation

Meyer Burger's customer list now includes around 30 customers, including distributors such as BayWa r.e., Krannich Solar, IBC Solar, Sonepar, Memodo in Europe and the U.S. distributor CED Greentech, a press release states. Parallel to the ramp-up of production and after successful certification of the modules, delivery of the first modules began at the end of July. Production at both sites is now running around the clock in continuous shift mode. However, missing standard components required for the scheduled ramp-up of the factories have delayed the commissioning of individual parts of the production lines and are currently reducing the speed of the production ramp-up. These parts have been delivered in the meantime. Nevertheless, Meyer Burger now no longer expects to reach full production capacity at the end of August, as originally announced, but a few weeks later. Meyer Burger is currently continuously delivering individually coordinated partial shipments in order to meet the agreed delivery dates as well as possible. Despite the tense global supply chain situation, Meyer Burger has sustainably secured the supply of critical materials for solar cell and module production with binding supply agreements. Financing secured for medium- and long-term capacity expansion In addition, financing for an accelerated expansion of production capacity has already been secured in July 2021. This will enable Meyer Burger to achieve critical economies of scale more quickly and also to utilize its own production equipment capacity in a more uniform manner and thus to operate more efficiently. With previously existing cash reserves, the syndicated loan of EUR 125 million, the factoring facility of EUR 60 million and additional funds from the capital increase of CHF 80 million and the green convertible bond of EUR 145 million, the company's further continuous growth is secured. Meyer Burger plans to reach 1.4 GW of cell and module production capacity each already by the end of 2022, thereby also closing the gap between module and cell capacity. Meyer Burger plans to establish an annual module production capacity of approximately 1 GW in Freiberg and initially approximately 0.4 GW at a second, scalable module production site. The company intends to take a decision on the second production site will be taken in the third quarter of 2021. Financial results reflect the transition phase As expected, the results for the first half of 2021 reflect the strategic realignment of the business model. While residual sales under the old business model amounted to CHF 18.0 million (H1 2020: CHF 51.0 million), Meyer Burger will generate its first solar module sales from the beginning of the second half of 2021. EBITDA generated amounted to CHF -30.9 million (H1 2020 adjusted: CHF -25.5 million). Including depreciation, amortization and impairment losses, the financial result and the share of profit of associated entities as well as taxes, the half-year net profit was CHF -37.2 million (H1 2020 adjusted: CHF -37.4 million). The capital increase and the green convertible bond were effected in July 2021 and are therefore not yet included in the balance sheet as of June 30, 2021. Likewise, the existing syndicated loan agreement and the factoring agreement have not yet been drawn upon as of June 30, 2021. As of June 30, 2021, total assets were CHF 273.5 million (December 31, 2020: CHF 296.8 million) with an equity ratio of 82.2% (December 31, 2020: 87.5%). The net cash position including restricted bank balances amounted to CHF 78.4 million (December 31, 2020: CHF 157.0 million). Property, plant and equipment increased to CHF 89.1 million (December 31, 2020: CHF 38.1 million) with cash-effective investments of CHF 52.5 million as well as capitalized goods and services, mainly in connection with the construction of the new production facilities. As expected, demand for the service business for existing customers of production equipment is declining. Meyer Burger therefore announced a restructuring of its Asian locations in July 2021. Meyer Burger is thus optimizing the global organizational structure in line with the realignment and thereby strengthening the company's earnings power. The operations of the subsidiary Pasan with global sales and service of its high-precision measurement technology products will continue unchanged.