2008 was a year of transition for Schneider Power, said Jonathan Lundy, Schneider Power’s chief executive officer. While the Company successfully made its public market debut in Q3, it was immediately challenged with the impact of a worldwide economic decline and subsequent tightening of credit markets. In the face of these macro events, in the fourth quarter, we took steps to reduce our exposure to the impact of market factors by better aligning our cost structure and development expenditures with our revenue.
Included in the salaries, general and administrative expenses for the year is about $1.0 million of non-recurring items related to the company’s qualifying transaction, CRCE penalty provisions and one-time compensation arrangements. As at December 31, 2008 the company had $1.85 million in cash and cash equivalents, compared with $1.98 million at the end of 2007.
Despite the continued volatility and uncertainty of the markets, we believe we are well positioned to take advantage of increased governmental and societal support for renewable power worldwide, particularly here in Ontario, added Lundy. Not only have we reduced our costs entering the year, but we are starting to realize additional revenue and value from our portfolio of renewable energy projects. Accordingly we have set the following financial goals for the year: to generate positive EBITDA and to reduce salaries, general and administrative expenses by 30%. Aside from expected top and bottom line improvements in 2009, our primary focus will be to continue to create value in our project pipeline, by finding new equity partners to bring our advanced stage projects online in 2010, and by further developing our promising early-stage projects, so that they are ready to be constructed in 2011 and beyond.
