E.ON profits treble in 1st half

E.ON, Germany's biggest power supplier, on Monday confirmed its full-year forecasts after net profit more than trebled in the first six months owing to a gas price deal with Russia's Gazprom. Confirming preliminary figures released last week, E.ON said that its underlying net income for the January-June period rose to "roughly 3.3 billion euros" ($4.1 billion) from 0.9 billion euros a year earlier. Operating profit, as measured by earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), soared 55.8 percent to 6.7 billion euros on a 23-percent rise in sales to 65.4 billion euros. E.ON said last week that first-half net profit would treble owing to the Gazprom deal and the fact that year-earlier earnings had been hit by one-off effects from the German nuclear phase-out. E.ON also said it was sticking to its forecast for 2012, with EBITDA expected at 10.4-11.0 billion euros and net profit at 4.1-4.5 billion euros. "With a strong first half, E.ON is continuing its positive performance and confirms its full-year forecast," said chief executive Johannes Teyssen. "Our solid first-half results demonstrate that we're meeting our existing challenges decisively," he said. E.ON shares were outperforming the overall the Frankfurt stock exchange on Monday, clocking up gains of 0.98 percent to 17.98 euros.