Germany’s fourth-largest energy group, EnBW, has said it expected higher profits in 2005 and 2006 after returning to profit last year, and announced plans to resume dividend payments.

Chief executive Utz Claassen said turnaround targets for 2004 had been exceeded and the company’s capital base improved after a period of steep losses.
“The overhaul process has been completed, we’ve gained breathing space and our rivals and customers can reckon with us again,” he said at the southeast German company’s annual news conference. “We intend to continue to improve our profitability in 2005 and 2006.”
EnBW said it was planning to pay a dividend for 2004 of 70 cents per share, better than 2003, when it paid none and the previous year’s 66 cents.
Net debt in 2004 had been reduced to 3.68 billion euros ($4.94 billion) by the end of 2004 from 6.96 billion euros a year earlier due to cost savings and disposals of non-core assets.
Pretax profit (EBT) of 707.4 million euros compared with a loss of 1.094 billion euros in 2003. Free cash flow increased by 2.7 billion euros to 2.352 billion euros from a negative 348 million the year before.
The equity to debt ratio rose to 9.7 per cent at the end of 2004 from 6.1 per cent at the end of 2003.
Group sales last year eased by 1.1 per cent to 9.84 billion euros, while the power, gas and energy services unit’s turnover rose by 10.9 per cent to 9 billion euros.
A group net profit of 308.1 million euros was made in 2004 after a 1.192.9-billion-euro loss in 2003.
Claassen said he had reduced the number of individual investments held by the company from 391 to 261. Many of these had been loss-making when he took the helm in mid-2003.
The company was looking at “strategically interesting options in eastern Europe,” he said, naming Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.