Stock Exchange Release: Vacon slightly reduces forecast for 2008

Vacon Plc, 12 December 2008 at 3.40 pm:

Revising its previous forecast, Vacon estimates that the company's
full year revenues in 2008 will grow by about 25 per cent. Previously
the company has estimated that revenues will grow by almost 30 per
cent in 2008. Vacon's revenues in 2007 totalled EUR 232.2 million.
The company estimates that the operating profit percentage will be
slightly under 12 per cent. Previously Vacon estimated that the
operating profit percentage would be similar to that in 2007 (12.6
%). The previous 2008 forecast of earnings per share was more than
EUR 1.6, whereas now Vacon estimates that it will be less than EUR
1.5. Due to lower than expected order intake in November Vacon
forecasts weaker growth and profitability for 2008 than in previous
guidance.

Vacon believes that growth in the AC drive market will slow down in
2009. In the current economic situation, making a forecast on the
outlook in the next few months is difficult and involves many
uncertainties. The company will give more details about its 2009
prospects in its financial statements bulletin, which will be
published at 9 am on Thursday, 5 February 2009.

The need to improve the energy consumption of electric motor
applications and major investments in energy production based on
renewable energy sources will increase the AC drive market in the
long term. Vacon is keeping its long-term goals unchanged. The
company aims to achieve annual revenues of EUR 500 million by 2012.
The target for profitability in 2012 is an operating profitpercentage of 14 per cent and a return on equity of more than 30 per
cent.

VACON PLC
Board of Directors

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Vesa Laisi, President and CEO, tel. +358 (0)40 8371 510
Mika Leppänen, Vice President, Finance and Control, tel. +358 (0)40
8371 235

Distribution:
NASDAQ OMX Helsinki
Main media
Financial Supervision Authority
www.vacon.com

Vacon in brief:
Vacon was established in 1993 from a passion to develop and produce
AC drives globally. It is a matter of honour for Vacon to offer
customers efficient, reliable and easy to use means for improving
process control and saving energy and costs. Vacon's solutions
represent clean technology. They can be used to control the speed of
electric motors used by industry and municipal engineering, and in
power generation using renewable energy. Vacon provides AC drives in
the power range 0.25 kW - 5 MW. Revenues in 2007 totalled EUR 232.2
million.