COPENHAGEN — Vestas Wind Systems said the U.S. market will pick up in 2010 and that the company can grow even without offering project financing. “We have a delayed reaction from a difficult 2009,” said chief executive Ditlev Engel. “The market will start to pick up again in 2010. The pipeline of projects looks much more promising, especially beyond 2010.”
Vestas said last week it would halt production at its Windsor blade-manufacturing plant at least until the second quarter of next year. The traditional slowdown in the first quarter was exacerbated by tight credit markets that made sales “more time-consuming and more complicated than before the financial crisis,” Engel said. While competitors Siemens AG and General Electric offer financing for some turbine buyers, Engel said Vestas won’t follow suit.
“This is not part of our business model,” he said. “There are still a lot of utilities out there that have access to other sources of finance, balance-sheet financing or other ways.”
Vestas forecast in October that 2010 sales will be $10.3 billion to $11.7 billion. That would be little- changed from the company’s forecast sales this year of $10.5 billion. Bloomberg News; Bloomberg photo
