FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Shares in Nordex made up for their initial losses in the afternoon on Friday and jumped sharply into positive territory. They were last quoted 6.7 percent higher at 11.43 euros, topping the MDax, which rose by around 0.3 percent at the same time. This is the highest level since mid-April. In early trading, the shares had slumped by up to 5.6 percent due to continued loss-making business at the wind turbine manufacturer.

A high backlog of old projects also weighed on Nordex in the first quarter. The industry has already been suffering from supply chain problems and high costs for many months and currently has to work off many unprofitable orders where expenses cannot be passed on sufficiently.

Although the wind turbine manufacturer confirmed its outlook for the full year 2023, the quarterly report was weaker than expected, a trader complained in the morning. "Profitability is the key, and here it looks pretty bad again," he stated. He added that the working capital ratio, which is based on consolidated sales, also deteriorated further quarter-on-quarter.

The number of new orders, which according to Jefferies analyst Constantin Hesse indicates that profitability will rise again in the future, was already known and therefore no longer a positive surprise. Analyst Ajay Patel from Goldman Sachs rated the figures as weak. The first three months of the year were characterized by economic uncertainty and high raw material costs.

In the year to date, the price of Nordex stock has fallen by around 13 percent. This makes it one of the weakest MDax stocks this year. Since its high for the year of EUR 15.63 in March, the stock has lost around 27 percent. The decline since the multi-year high just over two years ago is even more pronounced. At that time, Nordex stock had at times cost more than EUR 25 after falling to around EUR 5 in the crash resulting from the Corona pandemic in spring 2020.

Nordex was floated on the stock market in 2001 shortly before the collapse of the dotcom bubble and has had an eventful capital market history. After a high at the beginning, in which the share price rose to a high of around EUR 97 after adjustment for capital measures, it fell to almost EUR 1 in 2004. Since then, the share price has risen sharply again, in some cases with sharp fluctuations below the line.

The company is currently valued at just under 2.7 billion euros. The largest shareholder is the Spanish construction and real estate group Acciona, which holds almost half of the shares. Acciona had sold its wind turbine business to Nordex a few years ago and has held shares ever since. Since the Spanish major shareholder has to inject money again and again or converted loans into shares, the share rose peu à peu./edh/ngu/zb