March 27 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian car battery manufacturer Monbat [BUL:5MB] said its consolidated pre-tax profit fell by an annual 74.9% to 1.4 million levs ($892,196/715,809 euro) in the first two months of 2018.
The company’s net sales revenue decreased 14.9% year-on-year to 44 million levs in the period under review, Monbat said in a statement on Monday.
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Monbat’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by an annual 46.3% to 4.5 million levs in the period January-February.
"The EBITDA year-to-year variance is predominately driven by the limited trading volumes of the recycling division due to the low liquidity of the spot market as well as the relatively low weighted average costs of lead and lead materials being sold in 2017," Monbat said in the statement.
The company said that it expects, a seasonality shift to April and May 2018, and growth to accelerate in second half of 2018, where EBITDA potential from its new business in Italy to be realised.
In September, Monbat said it plans to acquire Italian battery recycling company Piombifera Italiana through its subsidiary Monbat Recycling.
In February alone, the consolidated pre-tax profit of Monbat decreased by 91.9% on the year to 202,000 levs while net sales revenue fell 34.5% to 17.4 million levs. EBITDA fell 56.3% year-on-year to 1.8 million levs in February.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)