LEVERKUSEN (dpa-AFX) - Plastics group Covestro suffered significant business losses at the start of the year in a difficult industry environment. With sales down by a fifth to 3.74 billion euros, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization slumped by almost two-thirds year-on-year to 286 million euros in the first quarter, the DAX-listed group announced on Thursday after the stock market closed, based on preliminary results.

At the beginning of March, Group CEO Markus Steilemann had forecast an operating profit of 100 to 150 million euros; at the end of March, however, the company had already said that things were looking somewhat better in principle. Analysts had attributed this primarily to the company's cost-cutting program. While sales fell short of the expert's expectations, operating profit was significantly higher. The shares rose by two percent in the early evening on the Tradegate trading platform compared with the Xetra close.

The bottom line was a loss of 30 million euros, compared with a surplus of 416 million euros a year ago. The entire industry has suffered from very weak demand, especially since last fall. Due to supply bottlenecks, many customers had previously stocked up heavily. In this situation, consumer sentiment also collapsed, and people became more cautious about purchases in view of high inflation and uncertain economic prospects. This caused demand from chemical companies to slump./mis/he