ROUNDUP: Aixtron lowers forecast - glimmer of hope for incoming orders

HERZOGENRATH - The chip industry supplier Aixtron has also felt the gloom on the electric car market. The MDax-listed company had to lower its annual targets for sales and the operating profit margin. However, this hardly came as a surprise, as experts have long been pointing to a rather difficult transition year for electromobility - with prospects remaining good in the long term. And so Aixtron's order intake gives analysts hope that business will pick up in the coming year. The recently badly shaken share price rose sharply on Friday.

ROUNDUP: Porsche wants to take over Varta's e-car battery business - share price up

ELLWANGEN/STUTTGART - The sports car manufacturer Porsche AG wants to buy the business for electric car batteries from the ailing battery company Varta. The two companies are currently negotiating a possible majority investment in the Varta subsidiary V4Drive, Varta announced in Ellwangen last night. The companies have already signed a non-binding letter of intent. Initially, the Varta subsidiary is to be outsourced, then the Volkswagen Group subsidiary Porsche would participate by increasing its capital. The Varta share price rose sharply.

Samsung again with significant jump in profits - share price rises

SEOUL - Rising chip prices as a result of strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) continue to boost the earnings of electronics giant Samsung. In its quarterly outlook for the months of April to June, the market leader for memory chips, smartphones and televisions expects operating profit to have increased more than fifteenfold year-on-year. The profit from the core businesses is expected to amount to 10.4 trillion won (around 7 billion euros), according to a press release from the South Korean company. In the second quarter of last year, the figure was 670 billion won.

Shell expects write-downs of up to two billion dollars

LONDON - The oil and gas group Shell expects write-downs of up to two billion US dollars (1.85 billion euros) in the second quarter. Shell justified this among other things with delays in the construction of a biofuel plant in Rotterdam, according to a statement published in London on Friday. According to the company, the pause in construction has led to value adjustments of between 600 million and one billion dollars. Shell is also writing off 600 to 800 million dollars on a chemical plant in Singapore.

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ROUNDUP: You are reading a summary in the company overview. There are several reports on this topic on the dpa-AFX news service.

/jha