BREMEN (dpa-AFX) - The wind and solar park operator Energiekontor is on course to achieve its annual and long-term targets. Pre-tax earnings for the current year are expected to increase by 10 to 20 percent compared to the previous year's figure of EUR 62.9 million, as the company announced in Bremen on Monday. The figure is expected to increase by an average of 15 percent annually until 2028 and then reach around 120 million euros. Analysts have so far tended to expect the lower end of the forecast range for the current year. The fact that the management still considers its optimistic scenario to be possible gave investors hope on Monday.

Energiekontor shares rose by almost five percent. However, the share price of the company, which is listed in the small-cap SDax index, had dropped significantly last week, falling by almost 15 percent. Stifel analyst Martin Tessier lowered his rating from "buy" to "hold" on Thursday, expressing skepticism about the company's potential business development. More than half of Energiekontor's shares are owned by the company's founders. The free float on the stock exchange amounts to just under 44 percent.

Energiekontor traditionally does not publish key financial figures for the first and third quarters, but only a qualitative descriptive report. In this report, the management also provided an update on the rotor blades that broke off a wind turbine in Lower Saxony in mid-October.

Energiekontor is in close contact with the manufacturer General Electric, as well as the district and the parties concerned, it said. It must be ensured that there is no threat of comparable damage to other turbines of the same type. The company had shut down five wind turbines after the incidents for safety reasons.

In recent years, rotor blades of wind turbines from various operators and manufacturers have occasionally broken due to a lack of stability. In Germany, there were around 30,000 installed wind turbines on land at the end of June./lew/ngu/mne/mis