US conglomerate General Electric (GE; Fairfield, Connecticut; www.ge.com) has completed its purchase of wind energy supplier LM Wind Power (LM; Lunderskov / Denmark; www.lmwindpower.com; see Plasteurope.com of 18.10.2016). GE had acquired the majority of shares of investment company Doughty Hanson (London / UK; www.doughtyhanson.com) before adding the company to its Renewable Energy division.

At the same time, LM announced the construction of an additional production plant in China. Its fourth facility in the People’s Republic is going to be built at Baodi, not far from its existing Tianjin site, where its planned staff of 500 will build rotor blades for GE.

In 2016, the rotor blades specialist has finally made a net profit of EUR 52m, leaving behind the era of red figures that had been plaguing the company since 2012. Sales were at EUR 1.06 bn (2015: 750m), while EBITDA was at EUR 174m (2015: 103m). For the current year, LM expects further revenue growth of 15% – in part fuelled by the start up of its Turkish plant (see Plasteurope.com of 11.08.2016). LM management, led by CEO Marc de Jong, aims to keep the company’s EBITDA margin stable at 16.5%. Currently, the wind energy supplier has 8,200 employees in 13 plants across the world and puts its world market share at 14%.