German truckmaker MAN SE expects to post a “distinctly higher” operating profit this year than in 2013 when earnings plunged by half on costs related to a failed power-plant project, it said on Wednesday. Profit last year was reduced by almost 300 million euros ($416 million) due to provisions at the group’s power engineering division related to problems at a project to build diesel-fueled electricity plants. “We’re now looking ahead,” Chief Executive Georg Pachta-Reyhofen said in a statement. “I’m cautiously optimistic for 2014.” Group sales at Munich-based MAN, which also makes diesel engines and turbines, are expected to dip “slightly” below last year’s level of 15.7 billion euros, while deliveries are forecast to be flat compared with last year’s 140,333 truck and bus sales, the company said. Parent Volkswagen has been pushing an alliance of its heavy-trucks brands MAN and Scania and last month said it would buy out minority shareholders of Scania for 6.7 billion euros to forge Europe’s biggest truckmaker. MAN said 2013 operating profit plunged to 475 million euros from 969 million a year earlier, slightly above the lowest estimate of 454 million euros in a Reuters poll of analysts. Operating profit at the power-engineering division, which accounts for a quarter of group sales, is likely to improve “sharply” from last year’s 40 million euros, MAN said.