Puratos Reports Encouraging Early-Year 2012 Outlook

These results show the continued success of the Group, in line with its long-term strategy, which is further confirmed by the good 2012 early-year results and a positive outlook.

19 Jun 2012 --- The Belgian Puratos Group has announced that its final 2011 results meet original expectations – with growth in annual revenue and EBITDA. Net sales reached € 1,212 million (+11%), resulting from volume growth and price/mix effect, and the contributions by acquisitions in Latvia and Brazil. EBITDA amounted to € 108.3 million, up by 4%. These results show the continued success of the Group, in line with its long-term strategy, which is further confirmed by the good 2012 early-year results and a positive outlook. As may be expected, the global market is showing some signs of slowing down, which is especially felt in terms of volume, but the Group’s margins and profit evolution remain fully in line with its growth strategy. This is largely the result of successes in a number of Western European, Asian and South American countries, and in particular in the BRIC countries.

Daniel Malcorps, CEO of the Puratos Group, comments: “This success is the result of our continued efforts to innovate our product offering alongside our vision and of our clear focus on realising our growth ambitions. Of course, over the last year, we have experienced the pressure of the crisis in the Euro zone and the uncertainty of the financial markets, in particular with volatility in raw material prices. Greece remains a big concern, as does Spain, although we hold our position in both markets. In the end, we are very pleased to be able to continue our growth – in line with the Group’s long-term strategy.”

In order to continue the rollout of its strategy for the future, in 2012, the Puratos Group is set to spend a record amount of capital expenditure – in total close to 80 million Euros. The projects include the construction of a state-of-the-art new R&D centre in Groot-Bijgaarden (Belgium), the second year of the major upgrade of the manufacturing facilities in Pennsauken (New Jersey, USA), the upgrade of the manufacturing facilities in Groot-Bijgaarden, and the completion and start-up of a greenfield manufacturing plant in Guangzhou (China). In addition, Puratos is continuing its global, Group-wide rollout of a new SAP ERP/CRM system projected to take several years.

Daniel Malcorps comments: “Puratos is investing in order to increase its capability to produce more and more innovative and technological products close to its customers everywhere, while increasing its service level.”

Despite its strong investments in infrastructure and R&D, Puratos continues to enjoy a very strong balance sheet with a Net Debt/EBITDA ratio at 31/12/2011 of 0.9.

The Puratos Group’s growth strategy remains focused on its mid-term and long-term milestones; namely, to achieve turnover amounting to € 2 billion by 2018 and € 5 billion by 2030. Daniel Malcorps, CEO of the Puratos Group, comments: “To date, we remain fully in line with our long-term plan. In order to secure the Group’s continued growth, we rely on organic growth supported by a focused product innovation strategy, technological and geographical expansion – the latter including selective acquisitions when they can help to accelerate the expansion plan."

Eddy Van Belle, Chairman of the Board, continues: “In addition, we make substantial investments in our teams around the world to assure they have the expertise, knowledge and skills to support our growth strategy. Over the years, our internal training programme, the Puratos University, has grown into a global platform for sharing expertise and knowledge throughout the Group. As we continue the rollout of our mid- and long-term strategy, the Puratos University will become even more important, also to assure we remain true to our overall mission: to be ‘reliable partners in innovation’ for our customers around the world in order to help them build their business.”