-Vestas said it is launching a new offshore wind platform

-The Danish company wants to lead in offshore wind by 2025

-The wind-turbine maker raised its full-year dividend on higher fourth-quarter net profit

By Dominic Chopping

Vestas Wind Systems AS on Wednesday announced a new offshore wind platform as it moves to catch up with other manufacturers that already have a strong presence in the offshore segment.

"While Vestas is not yet a leading player in offshore wind, we are taking a long-term perspective on the segment due to the length of offshore wind business cycles," the wind-turbine maker said.

"We want to build an organization that will become a leader in offshore by 2025, which means we need to catch up fast," it said.

The first V236-15.0 turbine prototype--which has a 236 meter rotor diameter and a 15-megawatt capacity--is expected to be installed in 2022, with serial production scheduled for 2024.

In a separate announcement Wednesday, Vestas proposed paying a higher dividend after posting a forecast-beating fourth-quarter net profit.

The Danish company posted net profit of 566 million euros ($686 million), up from EUR282 million a year earlier, beating an analyst consensus of EUR358 million, according to a FactSet poll.

Revenue fell 8.1% to EUR4.27 billion compared with the consensus view of EUR4.21 billion, helped by a higher volume of wind-turbine deliveries in the U.S.

Order intake rose to EUR4.0 billion from EUR3.5 billion, while the total turbine and service order backlog rose to EUR42.9 billion from EUR33.8 billion.

The company proposed a dividend of 8.45 Danish kroner ($1.38) from DKK7.93 the year prior.

"Renewable energy took another large step forward in 2020 by improving its competitiveness, showing great resilience during a global pandemic, and proving renewables can serve as the backbone of our societies in the future," Chief Executive Henrik Andersen said.

"To position Vestas strongly for future growth and profitability, our focus in 2021 will be to fully integrate offshore and address executional challenges," he added.

Full-year 2020 earnings took a hit from warranty provisions of EUR693 million, and Vestas expects these provisions to amount to around 3% of revenue in 2021, while the integration of the offshore business into Vestas's organization will result in around EUR100 million of exceptional costs.

Vestas sees 2021 revenue at EUR16 billion-EUR17 billion with an earnings before interest and tax margin before special items of 6%-8%. Total investments in the year are expected to amount to approximately EUR1 billion.

Write to Dominic Chopping at dominic.chopping@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 10, 2021 06:30 ET (11:30 GMT)

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