“Another priority was proactive cash management in addition to a selective investment policy. Accordingly, noncurrent liabilities could be reduced by 5.6 percent to EUR 758.1 million in first half of 2014 against EUR 803.0 million, from a year earlier”, says CFO Thomas Riegler.
Difficult market conditions, including considerably lower average fiber selling prices led to consolidated EBITDA slipping 28.8 percent year-on-year #
To counter the fiber price decline, Lenzing will now intensively focus on specialty fibers and the more stable nonwovens business at the expense of the more cyclically sensitive textile sector.
It said, both Lenzing Modal as well as TENCEL reported ongoing high demand and very good sales volumes throughout the entire first half of 2014, also generating attractive price premiums at the same time.
It noted that the optimization of customer structure and sales regions ensures that Lenzing will continue to obtain premium prices, even for its standard viscose fibers, which are higher than the level for other viscose fiber manufacturers.
In the first half of 2014, the Lenzing Group completed and successfully initiated production at its new TENCEL jumbo production facility, the largest in the world. Annual nominal TENCEL production capacity of the Lenzing Group will now rise from 155,000 tons per annum to about 220,000 tons.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India