Following the NEG Micon-Vestas merger (main story), LM risks losing one of the four customers responsible for 75% of its revenues. While NEG Micon has been reliant on LM for blades not made by its factory in southern England, which it bought in 1998, Vestas has traditionally made all its own blades. The new Vestas has already warned it will be negotiating with LM, which in the first nine months of last year saw a profit of EUR 3.4 million eaten away by interest payments of EUR 22.6 million on a debt of EUR 384.2 million. LM's equity is down to EUR 4 million. This year LM must repay loans of more than EUR 107 million. Board chairman Anders Knutsen told Danish newspaper Børsen that LM's owner, English investment house Doughty Hansen, must decide how to meet the repayments.
Nightmare of a component supplier
The once undisputed king of wind turbine blade production, LM Glasfiber, continues to downsize. It is now closing another facility in Denmark and has put the building up for sale. The question is where the "for sale" sign will go up next.
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