SFC Energy AG publishes audited consolidated figures for 2023 – Focus on another record year in 2024

SFC Energy AG publishes audited consolidated figures for 2023 – Focus on another record year in 2024

• Audited consolidated financial statements confirm preliminary figures published on 22 February 2024
• Group sales up 38.6%, rising to EUR 118,148 thousand (2022: EUR 85,229 thousand)
• Adjusted EBITDA increases by 86.0% to EUR 15,158 thousand (2022: EUR 8,150 thousand)
• Adjusted EBIT up three-fold, climbing to EUR 9,696 thousand (2022: EUR 3,157 thousand) thanks to an improved product mix
• Cash flow from operating activities before changes in working capital increases significantly to EUR 15,786 thousand (2022: EUR 8,742 thousand)
• Order book increases to EUR 81,300 thousand as of 31 December 2023 (31 December 2022: EUR 74,176 thousand)
• Forecast for 2024 confirmed

Brunnthal/Munich, Germany, 27 March 2024 – SFC Energy AG (“SFC”, F3C:DE, ISIN: DE0007568578), a leading supplier of hydrogen and methanol fuel cells for stationary and mobile hybrid power solutions, today publishes its annual report and audited consolidated figures for 2023.

Dr Peter Podesser, CEO of SFC Energy AG: “After record operating figures in 2021 and 2022, fiscal year 2023 continues seamlessly with new records. For the first time, our sales exceeded the EUR 100 million mark, coming to EUR 118,148 thousand (2022: EUR 85,229 thousand). At the same time, we grew profitably in an economically challenging environment, something that is not a matter of course in our sector. This clearly sets us apart from peers.

Our order book of EUR 81,300 thousand as of 31 December 2023 (31 December 2022: EUR 74,176 thousand) forms a solid basis for continuing on our profitable growth trajectory as planned. We are proud that our technologies and products remain in demand as they offer an attractive and sustainable value proposition at the highest quality standards to our customers. This way we help our customers to be competitive and to support their efforts to reach long-term decarbonisation targets. Accordingly, order intake in the first few months of the current fiscal year is continuing to grow dynamically. It is particularly worth noting the record order with a total value of approx. EUR 27.8 million gained in the first quarter from a leading international high-tech equipment manufacturer and the last repeat order from Oneberry Technologies in Singapore for reliable energy supply for border protection.

Our ambitions remain unchanged in 2024. We are continuing to strengthen our international footprint in the United States, Europe and Asia. By continuously improving the functionality of our products through cloud and IIoT capabilities as well as longer operating times we solidify our competitive position. This year, we expect the strongest growth impetus to come from North America and Asia. Our production facility in India has been completed and is now supplying customers in India. This creates a solid foundation for sustainable expansion both in India and across Asia. We also intend to harness the supply chain potential of the Indian market and the opportunities of the Indian labour market for the benefit of the entire Group.

In the US we are experiencing further strong growth and support this via the expansion of our newly established sales, service and logistics centre in Salt Lake City. The integration and further development of our proprietary membrane technology gained from last year’s asset deal with Johnson Matthey in the UK is on track. This will additionally improve key performance features such as the durability and performance of our products, making them even more attractive to our customers. At the same time, we are increasing our vertical integration and reducing external dependencies. All in all, we are rising to new levels in terms of organisation, systems and processes, including a standardised Group-wide ERP system, in order to achieve the forecast growth.”

Development of sales

In fiscal year 2023, the SFC Energy Group generated significant sales growth of 38.6% to EUR 118,148 thousand (2022: EUR 85,229 thousand). This gratifying performance in a persistently challenging environment was underpinned by the very sharp increase in sales in the Clean Energy segment, which rose by 37.1% over the previous year, as well as extraordinarily strong organic sales growth of 41.7% in the Clean Power Management segment. Overall, Group sales were thus even higher in 2023 than the forecast range of EUR 115,000 thousand to EUR 117,000 thousand, which had been adjusted upwards in November 2023.

Development of the segments

The Clean Energy segment again benefited from strong demand for the Group’s fuel cell solutions in the reporting year, posting a very significant increase of 37.1% in sales to EUR 79,032 thousand (2022: EUR 57,632 thousand). This performance was particularly attributable to energy solutions for industrial applications, which address the core target markets of “civil security technology / video surveillance” and “data transmission and digitalisation”, among others, and accounted for the largest share of segment sales. Demand from the core public security target markets also increased significantly. By contrast, sales of applications in the core target markets for private applications, which contributed the smallest share of segment sales, declined due to general consumer restraint. Sales growth was materially driven by increased contributions from all target regions, particularly North America and Asia. Despite a marginal decline in the reporting year, Clean Energy accounted for the highest sales, with a share of 66.9% (2022: 67.6%).

Sales in the Clean Power Management segment also exhibited extremely strong growth of 41.7%, climbing to EUR 39,116 thousand (2022: EUR 27,597 thousand) in the reporting year. In the previous year, segment sales had particularly been characterised by a challenging buy-side environment and supply chain constraints, which eased only gradually in the second half of 2022. The supply chain bottlenecks were almost fully eliminated in the reporting year. Segment sales increased significantly in both Europe and North America thanks to dynamic demand. This is partly due to the continued favourable demand from existing customers in the oil, gas and mining end-customer market, resulting from relatively high crude oil prices and stable market conditions. Clean Power Management accounted for 33.1% of Group sales in the reporting year (2022: 32.4%).

Order intake decreased slightly in the reporting year as per balance-sheet date to EUR 124,799 thousand (2022: EUR 127,195 thousand). By contrast, the Group’s order backlog widened significantly to EUR 81,300 thousand as of the reporting date on 31 December 2023 (2022: EUR 74,176 thousand).

Development of earnings

Both the growth in sales and the wider gross profit margins in both segments led to a significant increase in gross profit of EUR 15,388 thousand or 49.0% to EUR 46,794 thousand (2022: EUR 31,406 thousand). The resulting gross profit margin for the Group (gross profit as a percentage of revenues) widened significantly to 39.6% (2022: 36.8%).

Gross profit for the individual segments compared to the previous year is as follows:

EBITDA adjusted for non-recurring effects increased significantly in the reporting year to EUR 15,158 thousand (2022: EUR 8,150 thousand), thus exceeding the forecast range of EUR 13,000 thousand to EUR 14,100 thousand. The adjusted EBITDA margin improved substantially to 12.8% (2022: 9.6%).

EBIT adjusted for non-recurring effects came to EUR 9,696 thousand (2022: EUR 3,157 thousand), marking a three-fold increase over the previous year, and was therefore also above the target corridor defined by the Management Board (EUR 7,500 thousand to EUR 8,600 thousand). This resulted in a significantly higher adjusted EBIT margin of 8.2% compared to the previous year (2022: 3.7%).

The reporting year closed with a significant increase in consolidated net profit for the period of EUR 21,062 thousand (2022: EUR 1,067 thousand). It should be noted that, of this amount, EUR 11,719 thousand is attributable to tax income. In the reporting period, deferred tax assets of EUR 17,416 thousand (2022: EUR 0 thousand) were recognised for tax reduction claims, as it is assumed that it will be possible to utilise existing unused tax losses within a reasonable period of time due to the expected future positive earnings situation. Basic and diluted earnings per share in accordance with IFRS amounted to EUR 1.21 (2022: EUR 0.07) and EUR 1.18 (2022: EUR 0.07), respectively, in the reporting year.

Balance sheet

At 72.6% (31 December 2022: 71.2%), the equity ratio was above the previous year’s figure. The net financial position (freely available cash and cash equivalents less liabilities to banks) fell moderately to EUR 56,056 thousand as of the 2023 reporting date (31 December 2022: EUR 60,748 thousand). As of 31 December 2023, the SFC Energy Group had 403 permanent employees worldwide (31 December 2022: 354).

Cash flow from operating activities before changes in net working capital and income taxes (the operating result before changes in working capital) improved significantly in the reporting year to EUR 15,782 thousand (2022: EUR 8,742 thousand). After allowing for the change in net working capital, which increased by EUR 10,978 thousand in the reporting year (2022: EUR 13,263 thousand), and income tax payments, a positive cash flow from operating activities of EUR 3,576 thousand was generated (previous year: EUR -4,761 thousand). This substantial increase was mainly due to the considerable increase in the cash flow from operating activities in conjunction with a lower increase in net working capital compared to the previous year.

Forecast for 2024

Based on the strength of the successful business performance in 2023, the Management Board expects demand for the Group’s fuel cell and power management solutions to continue rising in all regional markets, ensuring that the Group should remain on its growth trajectory in 2024. Significant impetus for growth is expected from North America and Asia in particular.

Group sales

For the current financial year, the Management Board expects Group sales to grow year-on-year by around 20% to 30% to roughly EUR 141.7 million to EUR 153.5 million (2023: EUR 118.1 million), underpinned to a much greater extent by the Clean Energy segment.

Adjusted EBITDA

The Management Board projects an increase in adjusted EBITDA to between EUR 17.5 million and EUR 22.4 million (2023: EUR 15.2 million), thus resulting in a stable to slightly wider EBITDA margin. Further margin expansion is contingent upon the timing of planned growth investments, particularly regional expansion, and the potential impact of increased material and procurement costs. This assumes that the higher costs can be passed on to customers to a certain extent.

Adjusted EBIT

Based on the budgets for the Clean Energy and Clean Power Management segments, the Management Board expects adjusted EBIT for the Group to be between EUR 9.8 million and EUR 14.7 million in 2024 (2023: EUR 9.7 million). In particular, this forecast factors in expenses in connection with regional expansion and the establishment of MEA production.

Key Figures 2023/2022

 * as of 31 December

Detailed financial information

The 2023 Annual Report of SFC Energy AG will be available at www.sfc.com today.

SFC Energy AG will be holding a conference call in English for interested investors and members of the press today, 27 March 2024, at 15.00 CET.

To register, please send an e-mail to susan.hoffmeister@sfc.com.

About SFC Energy AG

SFC Energy AG (www.sfc.com) is a leading provider of hydrogen and direct methanol fuel cells for stationary and mobile hybrid power solutions. With the Clean Energy and Clean Power Management business segments, SFC Energy is a sustainably profitable fuel cell producer. The company distributes its award-winning products worldwide and has sold more than 65,000 fuel cells to date. The company is headquartered in Brunnthal/Munich, Germany and has operating subsidiaries in the Netherlands, Romania, India, the US, and Canada. SFC Energy AG is listed on the Deutsche Boerse Prime Standard and has been part of the selection index SDAX since 2022 (GSIN: 756857, ISIN: DE0007568578).

SFC Energy IR and Press Contact:

Susan Hoffmeister
Phone: +49 89 125 09 03-33
Email: susan.hoffmeister@sfc.com
Web: sfc.com

* * *

This release may contain forward-looking statements, estimates, opinions and projections with respect to the anticipated future performance of the company (“Forward-Looking Statements”). These Forward-Looking Statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including, but not limited to, the terms “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “expects,” “intends,” “may,” “will” or “should” or, in each case, their negative, or other variations or comparable terminology. These Forward-Looking Statements include all matters that are not historical facts. Forward-Looking Statements are based on the current views, expectations and assumptions of the Management Board of SFC Energy AG and involve significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Forward-Looking Statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. Any Forward-Looking Statements only apply as of the date of this release. We undertake no obligation, and do not expect to publicly update, or publicly revise, any of the information, Forward-Looking Statements or the conclusions contained herein or to reflect new events or circumstances or to correct any inaccuracies which may become apparent subsequent to the date hereof, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. We accept no liability whatsoever in respect of the achievement of such Forward-Looking Statements and assumptions.