Swiss tech corporation ABB today said it will not publish any forecasts for this year because of the potential disruption to its business being caused by Covid-19.
The company, which this month completed the sale of its solar inverter business to Italian company Fimer, said although its three Chinese manufacturing facilities in Shanghai, Beijing and Xiamen have “largely returned to normal,” it is “actively reducing all non-essential costs” because of the potential fallout from the spread of the coronavirus on its activities.
The announcement came on the day ABB said it had completed its acquisition of Chinese electric vehicle charging company Chargedot.
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ABB, which is due to sell off its Power Grids infrastructure operation to Hitachi at the end of the next quarter, said it expected first-quarter revenues to be down year on year across all of its businesses and was preparing for “a difficult second quarter, with a focus on adjusting capacity to meet reduced demand.”
The company added, its board of directors and executive committee would surrender 10% of their salaries and board compensation for the duration of the Covid-19 crisis and donate the cash to the effort to contain spread of the virus. CEO Björn Rosengren said the intention was to extend the voluntary move to other levels of senior management at ABB.
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