Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Wind: "Vestas cuts 3,000 jobs"

As an analyst friend said after glancing at this chart*:

 
" A Trend is Emerging" 

That is certainly true of the wind companies. As we saw in last Wednesday's "What's Wrong With Wind? (GE; VESTY; FLR; HSN.L; SI)" the Vice-chairman of General Electric spoke of. "a wind market that has really collapsed in the US".

Here's the latest from the Financial Times' Energy Source blog:
Yesterday’s confirmation that the government would protect £60m of spending on port infrastructure gave an important fillip to the UK offshore wind industry.
But today the industry had much more worrying news from Vestas, the market leader in this area, who have decided to slash 14 per cent from its overall workforce, at a cost of 3,000 jobs. Clare MacCarthy reports from Copenhagen:
Vestas, the world’s largest wind power company, is to cut up to 3,000 jobs – some 14 per cent of its global workforce – because of excess capacity and a cut in order expectations in Europe.
The closures of four production facilities in Denmark and one in Sweden were announced on Tuesday with the Denmark-based group’s third-quarter results. Net profits fell to €126m ($176m) from €165m a year earlier and sales declined 5.1 per cent to €1.72bn....MORE
*The stock is Phillip  Morris (now Altria). The move depicted is 8 cents to $25.06.