The Board of Directors of the Europac Group has approved its 2017 annual accounts, which recorded a net profit of Euro 78 million, 59.4% up on 2016. Aggregate sales increased by 10.9% to Euro 1,186 million, while consolidated sales reached Euro 868 million, 8.4% more than a year ago, as the company said in the press release received by Lesprom Network.
Consolidated EBITDA amounted to Euro 158 million, 25% up on Euro 127 million of the previous year, while recurring EBITDA totalled Euro 147 million, 19.3% up on the previous year. The difference between consolidated and recurring EBITDA is mainly due to the extraordinary effects of the sale of the packaging factory in Tangier and the logistics operator at the port of Viana do Castelo, as well as settlement of the guarantees linked to the acquisition of the paper and packaging factories in Rouen (France) in 2008.
In this context, the EBITDA margin rose by 2.4 percentage points to 18.2%, while EBIT amounted to Euro 106 million, 37.1% up on the previous year.
“The 2017 results are the best for the third year running, although they do not represent our best possible result,” indicates José Miguel Isidro, Chairman of the Europac Group. In this regard, he stressed that “maintenance of paper demand with additional rises in January 2018 and the downward trend in the price of its raw material, which has accumulated an overall fall of Euro 45 per tonne since the beginning of the year, together with the necessary recovery of the margins of the packaging business, allow us to think that the Company’s results have the potential to continue improving.”
The Europac Group is an integrated operator with activities in all areas of the paper and packaging industry value chain, from end-to-end waste management and forestry operations for the procurement of the raw materials necessary for the production of recycled paper and kraftliner at the Group’s plants in Spain, France and Portugal, to the manufacture of cardboard sheets and boxes as end products.
