In many ways, business improved for Finnish group Wärtsilä in the year’s first quarter, though a write-down of activities in Russia had a negative effect on the operating result.
Finnish supplier Wärtsilä may celebrate having markedly improved its sales and fattened its orderbook in the first quarter of 2022. Still, there are red figures on the bottom line – because of the war in Ukraine.
Wärtsilä announced last week that the company had performed a write-down of approximately EUR 200m of its business in Russia as a consequence of the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
This entails a setback in the operating result of EUR 183m and a resulting loss of EUR 147m compared to the corresponding period in 2021.
”The situation in Russia will impact our sales volumes during the remainder of 2022,” says company CEO Håkan Agnevall in a statement on the quarterly result.
Nevertheless, Wärtsilä, developer and manufacturer of ship engines, books advancement in its core business. Net sales have increased by approximately 30 percent to USD 1.231bn, with the operating result – without the Russian write-down – being an entire 61 percent better than in the corresponding period of 2021.
The company’s order intake amounted to EUR 1.38bn – an increase by 11 percent compared to Q1 2021 – among other things thanks to ”a good level of equipment orders” within the marine and energy business. The combined orderbook came to EUR 6.1bn at the end of March.
Wärtsilä expects demand for the company’s products in Q2 to be comparable to the corresponding period of 2021.
