Even if Eon's sales have increased by 60 percent, Leonhard Birnbaum does not see the energy company as a winner of the crisis, on the contrary.

"We only have difficulties with the high prices that we are now observing and the extremely high price fluctuations," said the CEO of the Essen-based energy group on Wednesday.

Jonas Jansen

Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.

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"Our company would be in a better position if we didn't have these high prices," said Birnbaum in a video conference to present the half-year figures for the 2022 fiscal year.

Eon supplies 14 million people in Germany alone with electricity and gas, and the company has more than 50 million private and business customers throughout Europe.

And Germany's largest energy supplier expects electricity and gas prices to continue to rise, also for end customers.

The only difference is how quickly they are implemented depending on the country and contract group.

Eon has raised gas prices sharply

In North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, Eon has increased gas prices by an average of 40 percent compared to the same period last year.

In Great Britain, the average customer will be paying £3,000 for electricity and gas instead of £2,000 from October.

“I have been in this industry for 25 years.

I've never seen a situation like this," said Birnbaum.

The energy manager considers the discussion about an excess profit tax for those benefiting from the gas crisis to be “understandable”, but Birnbaum also says: “I’m very cautious about that.” If you go, for example, according to the Italian model, which is primarily tied to sales , energy giants like the Eon group, which turned over 52.8 billion euros in the first six months, would of course immediately be in focus.

"But our earnings are also coming under pressure because it's becoming more difficult for customers to pay," said Birnbaum.

It is actually the case that Eon, as a network operator and as a sales channel, hardly ever generates any energy itself.

There are big winners in the industry right now, such as the RWE group, which is also based in Essen and is experiencing a decent special boom with its consistently cheap generation from coal-fired power plants and renewable energies with rising prices.

On the other hand, there are losers like Uniper, which once belonged to Eon and was spun off in 2016 - and which has come under enormous pressure because of its gas delivery obligations because the company cannot pass on the sharply increased prices.

Eon stands in between as a supplier, Birnbaum emphasized again how important political support is.

“These companies need to be supported so that there is a domino effect throughout the supply chain,

Growing risk

The Dax group, in turn, announced in March that it would raise its prices due to the sharp rise in wholesale prices.

The company announced on Wednesday that this would probably only stabilize the result in the second half of the year.

The extent to which Eon is also affected by the price increases can be seen, for example, in the procurement of materials. At 63 billion euros, this item on the balance sheet has more than doubled compared to the same period last year.

In addition, there is also an increasing risk for Eon that claims could be defaulted in the future if more and more people simply cannot afford the increased costs for electricity and gas.

Nevertheless, due to the "good creditworthiness and the systemic importance of large suppliers", there is still only a "very low probability of occurrence" for the risk that suppliers could fail, as stated in the adjusted risk report.

Eon itself is of course very stable due to its size alone.

The high prices also have a positive effect.

“Compared to the previous year, gas has already been saved noticeably.

And saving energy is the order of the day,” said Birnbaum.

This is also important for the security of supply, because on the one hand less would be consumed overall and the price could then drop again due to the falling demand.

This was already evident in the gas volumes passed through in Germany in the first six months: While the volume of electricity remained almost at the same level as in the previous year, the gas fell from 107.3 to 97 billion kilowatt hours, which, in addition to the warmer weather in the first quarter, was largely due to the war in Ukraine and the resulting price effects for gas.

Several analysts assumed on Wednesday that the gas levy that had been decided would have a positive effect on Eon and noticeably reduce the risk.

In the first six months, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization fell by 15 percent to 4.1 billion euros.

However, there were also positive special effects in the previous year.

The strictly regulated and stable grid business made the largest contribution, even though it was impacted by the milder weather and so-called grid losses.

This happens because grid operators are obliged to supply energy grids with a basic voltage, for which electricity has to be bought on the market.