Last year was characterised by significant fluctuations for Moelven. Sales in 2019 decreased by NOK 723.3 million to NOK 10,297.5 million ($1.13 billion) in 2019, and the operating result decreased by NOK 250.8 million to NOK 335.4 million ($36.9 million).
“The first half of the year was very good, while the second half was characterised by uncertainty in the world economy due to the trade war between China and the US, Brexit and surplus timber in the market as a result of bark beetle attacks and storm fellings in Europe. This challenged market activity and profitability for Moelven towards the end of the year,” says CEO Morten Kristiansen of Moelven Industrier ASA.
“We are seeing positive tendencies towards better market balance for the Timber division, which supplies wood products and components to the domestic and international industrial markets. Moelven’s Wood division, which targets the building materials trade and building market, has seen strong developments in interiors, while building wood deliveries are affected by a decline in new building activity in both Norway and Sweden. For the Building Systems division, with glulam, office solutions and building modules, 2019 was characterised by somewhat reduced activity. This particularly applies to building modules, where we had to reduce capacity for parts of the year. This now seems to be improving, and we believe in a more stable 2020 for this part of the business as well,” Kristiansen explains.
As a wood products company, Moelven delivers sawn goods, planed construction material and interior products, glulam, modular buildings and building solutions.