VW’s all-electric vehicle launch casts a shadow for Carclo
TECHNICAL plastics group Carclo expects the change of plans by a major customer to hit its results, after Volkswagen announced its flagship luxury vehicle that is to be launched in 2017 will be all-electric.
Carclo generated nearly 40% of its £107m revenues last year from its LED technologies and precision engineering division, which makes lighting and control systems for the automotive and aerospace industries. Its largest division, technical plastics, contributes almost all of the rest of the group’s income.
In a statement to the stock market, Carclo warned it “anticipates that the likely impact of the announcement from VW will mean the Group’s full year performance will be marginally below its previous expectations”.
It added: “While the full ramifications of this decision on the lighting design are not yet confirmed, we anticipate that this announcement will impact the expected launch date of this vehicle and therefore the timing of anticipated related revenues for our Wipac business.
However it did say that first-half trading had been “well ahead” of a year earlier, despite the impact of the weaker Euro on some of its businesses.
