May the 4th, 2023 – The Osijek company Saponia’s revenues have exceeded a very impressive 27 million euros, and the company’s most significant investment yet is now entering into its final phase.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Mladen Miletic writes, the beginning of the year brought an almost 10 percent increase in revenue to the Osijek company Saponia, which exceeded 27 million euros (27.1) in the first quarter of 2023.
In the financial report published last week for the first three months of this year, the company notes that a strong increase in profitability of 35 percent was created with the achievement of EBIT of 1.2 million euros, as well as a proportional increase in EBT of 32 percent, with the achievement of profit before tax in the amount of 1.2 million euros.
Revenues from sales on the domestic market grew significantly, which, in relation to the same period last year was 18 percent higher and amounted to 15.3 million euros. On foreign markets, which are responsible for 43% of total revenues, that realisation amounted to 11.4 million euros.
Balanced growth
“Despite the increased absorption of input costs, the Osijek Saponia company’s operations are continuing to head in the planned direction. Significant growth in terms of business income was achieved in a very difficult cost and operational environment.
The financial progress of business income consequently preserves and improves other key business indicators, and as such the ratio of net debt to EBITDA was maintained at 1.8, and the level of net working capital recorded an increase of 57 percent and amounted to 39.5 million euros. The value created in the first quarter of 2023 confirms that the balanced growth of Saponia has been created,” the quarterly financial report states.
However, it has been noted that the business is still primarily characterised by cost pressure through the growth of prices of raw materials and packaging, energy costs and further increases in the gross salary of employees.
“As such, the costs of production materials are 23 percent higher, and the costs of energy and fuel are 55 percent higher compared to the first quarter of last year. The work of our employees was supported by an increase in payments for labour costs of 16 percent, which had an aliquot effect on the increase in the average gross salary for 1,071 employees,” they stated.
Energy restoration
In a period in which the importance of energy sustainability and savings is becoming more and more clear, the Osijek Saponia company is beginning to “harvest” the benefits of intensive investments in increasing energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources, about which the company said the following:
“Certainly the most important project for the development of the Osijek Saponia company as a modern and environmentally conscious enterprise is energy renovation, which is entering the final phase, and even at first glance you can see the change on the facades of all four buildings, and we expect the end result, i.e. savings, by the end of the year. The workers in the production plants are already seeing the announced positive changes in working conditions, and our goal is to continue this process and a number of new projects have been prepared and are ready for implementation,” the statement read.
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