The year 2006 was, in general, particularly difficult as a result of the international market recession; this accentuated competition for the maintenance of market shares and reduced margins for all competitors.
Nevertheless, despite this scenario, the effective implementation of a product diversification and sales internationalisation strategy allowed the Sacmi Group to maintain market shares.
With a slight rise in the number of employees, the 2006 Group balance sheet closed with sales of 1,074 million Euros, generating a net Group profit of 13.5 million Euros, equal to 1.3% of the income generated by the sale of goods and services. The share of sales accounted for by exports stabilized at 80.9%. Ebitda reached 97 million Euros, Ebit 60 million and net worth increased to 510 million Euros.
The Ceramic business area, with consolidated sales of around 695 million Euros, returned to business volumes on a par with those of the preceding years; while volumes are down by 10 percent with respect to 2005, it should be borne in mind that the latter was an exceptional year on account of some particularly large sales contracts.
The Beverage and Packaging division, instead, achieved volume increases of 21%, making it a record year for the sale of machines and complete plants for the production of plastic bottle caps. The division closed the financial year with consolidated sales of 175 million Euros against the 145 million Euros of 2005.
For the Food Processing division, instead, stable consolidated volumes generated a 2006 operational profit of over a million Euros. Continued efforts on the technological innovation front led to the signing of important sales agreements.
As regards the Plastics division, 2006 saw the first results of the reorganisation plan implemented by the Negri Bossi Group, with volumes increasing by over 20% with respect to 2005: consolidated sales jumped from 100 million Euros to 122 million; operational results, while still negative, improved decidedly.
The Services division’s year was characterized by near-stable volumes yet significantly improved profitability (consolidated sales 2006 of 57 million Euros, in line with the Budget), thus confirming the validity of the efficiency enhancement plan implemented in 2006.