News: Suppliers
2 October 2020
Riber’s net loss rises year-on-year in first-half 2020
Riber S.A. of Bezons, France – which manufactures molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) systems as well as evaporation sources and effusion cells – has confirmed revenue of €11.6m for first-half 2020, down 17% on first-half 2019’s €13.9m.
Systems revenue fell by 35% from €8.6m to €5.6m, with deliveries falling from four reactors to three, as one production system was deferred to third-quarter 2020 due to sourcing difficulties linked to the coronavirus pandemic.
Evaporators revenue fell further, by 95% from €1m to just €0.1m, as the market remains sluggish due to the current lack of investment in the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen industry.
Services & Accessories revenue grew strongly by 39% from €4.3m to €6m, in line with the plan to develop the business.
Gross margin was 28.9%, stable with first-half 2019’s 29.1%.
Operating expenditure is down by 5%, due primarily to the reduction in sales & marketing costs. Administrative costs rose slightly by 7%, while R&D investment was maintained at a high level of €1.5m.
Net loss has risen from €0.4m to €1.1m, rising from -2.9% to -9.6% of revenue.
Due to the first-half loss and the distribution of amounts drawn against the issue premium to shareholders for 2019 (€0.6m), shareholders’ equity has fallen from €19.2m at end-December 2019 to €17.4m at end-June 2020.
Net cash at end-June 2020 was €6.1m, up from €2.5m at end-June 2019, aided by a €6m government-backed loan that the firm has put in place with its banks to consolidate its working capital and mitigate the postponement of order-taking decisions (and the resulting decrease in deposits paid when ordering) due to the pandemic.
The order book at end-June has fallen by 36% from 2019’s €28.4m to 2020’s €18.2m.
Specifically, the Systems business is marked by the wait-and-see approach adopted by clients, with its order book contracting by 42% from €21.5m (13 systems to be delivered in 2019, including six production units) to €12.5m (seven systems to be delivered in 2020, including two production systems). However, Riber expects its system orders to improve in fourth-quarter 2020 due to a strong portfolio of prospects.
Services & Accessories orders have fallen from €6.9m at end-June 2019 to €5.7m at end-June 2020. However, this does not include the major order for MBE services in the USA signed up in September.
For full-year revenue, Riber is forecasting about €30m for 2020, down from 2019’s €33.5m.
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Riber’s growth in Systems and Services revenues offsets 91% drop for Evaporators
Riber’s first-half revenue falls 17% year-on-year
