Annual Shareholders' Meeting

Dear Shareholders,

WACKER’s performance in 2018 was marked by the strength of our chemical business and by difficult conditions in the solar market. Overall, sales rose by 1 percent to €4.98 billion. EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) came in at €930 million, 8 percent lower than the year before. The decline was due to the fact that insurance compensation was still outstanding for the shutdown caused by the loss event at our Charleston site in Tennessee (USA). Income from continuing operations rose, on the other hand, by 4 percent to €260 million.

The outstanding insurance payments affected our net financial debt. It came in at €609 million and was thus higher year over year. Net cash flow of around €125 million was clearly positive, but substantially lower than a year earlier because capital expenditures were higher (as planned), as were cash outflows for working capital and taxes.

Essentially, 2018 was a year of highs and lows for WACKER. Our chemical business performed very well, especially silicones. We increased silicone sales by 14 percent. The rise was fueled by volume gains for high-margin specialties and higher prices for standard products. Chemical-division EBITDA increased to more than €780 million, despite significantly higher raw-material costs, particularly in our polymer business.

We further strengthened WACKER BIOSOLUTIONS by acquiring a new production site for pharmaceutical actives. The acquisition doubled our capacity in the fast-growing biopharmaceuticals market.

Another positive fact is that, after the loss event at Charleston in September 2017, we resumed polysilicon production there in Q2 2018 and, in December, reached full capacity.

But, aside from this good news, WACKER POLYSILICON faced very challenging market conditions in 2018. Business was dampened by China’s decision to curb feed-in tariffs for some solar projects and to cap the amount of new solar installations.

Given our strong income from continuing operations, the Supervisory and Executive Boards will propose to the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting in May 2019 that a dividend of €2.50 per share should be distributed.

We hereby invite WACKER’s shareholders to attend our Annual Shareholders’ Meeting at the ICM – International Congress Center Munich (Munich-Riem: Am Messesee 6, 81829 Munich, Germany) – on Thursday, May 23, 2019, starting at 10:00 a.m.

Sincerely,
Wacker Chemie AG

Dr. Peter-Alexander Wacker
Chairman of the Supervisory Board

Dr. Rudolf Staudigl
President & CEO