ChelPipe Group boosts EBITDA by 39% in H1 to 14.5 bln rubles
MOSCOW. Aug 26 (Interfax) - ChelPipe Group in H1 2015 increased earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by 39% year-on-year to 14.458 billion rubles, the company said.
EBITDA margin fell by 0.3 percentage points and was 19%. The main reason for the reduction was a change in the structure of sales of the products from the pipe division.
The company's revenue in the reporting period rose by 40.8% and amounted to 75.958 billion rubles. Gross profit rose by 39% and reached 21.613 billion rubles.
The group's net profit for the six months was 4.211 billion rubles, having increased 22.3-fold. Net margin rose to 5.5%. Such results were reached due to the growth of sales volume, cutting costs with the effect of 1.26 billion rubles and positive exchange rate differences, the company said.
Total debt on loans and borrowings in January-June fell by 5.308 billion rubles to 94.121 billion rubles, including bonds for 2.5 billion rubles that were repaid.
The company's net debt fell by 9.8% to 84.704 billion rubles. Net debt to EBITDA fell to 3.2 from 4.1 at the end of 2014.
ChelPipe's financial highlights for H1 2015, mln rubles:
| H1 2015 | H1 2014 | Change | |
| Revenue | 75 958 | 53 964 | 40,8% |
| Pipe sales volume, '000 tonnes | 1 073 | 879 | 22% |
| Gross profit | 21 613 | 15 539 | 39% |
| Operating profit | 10 769 | 6 737 | 60% |
| Pretax profit | 5 689 | 611 | 831% |
| Net profit | 4 211 | 189 | 2128% |
| EBITDA | 14 458 | 10 393 | 39% |
| EBITDA margin | 19% | 19,3% | 0,3 p.p. |
| Net margin | 5,5% | 0,4% | 5,1 p.p. |
| Operating cash flow | 10 286 | 4 417 | 132% |
| Capex | 3 348 | 2 244 | 49,2% |
The sale of pipe products in the reporting period increased by 22% to 1.073 million tonnes. Supplies to the Russian market amounted to 976,000 tonnes and export supplies amounted to 97,000 tonnes.
Chelpipe Group, in particular, sold 532,000 tonnes of welded pipe (of which there 508,000 tonnes of large diameter pipe), which is 39.6% more that the same period of last year, when sales of welded pipes amount to 381,000 tonnes, of which 363,000 tonnes were large diameter pipes. The increase occurred thanks to the participation of the company in the following projects: Power of Siberia, South Corridor, Bovanenkovo-Ukhta, Yamal LNG, Beineu-Bozoi-Shymkent, the second stage and supplies for the maintenance needs of operating pipelines.
For the half the group sold 541,000 tonnes of weld-free pipes, increasing sales volume by 8.6% in comparison with January-June 2014. In this segment, shipments rose due to the increase of sales in Russia, which is attributable to import substitution on the weld-free pipe market.