(Press Release)
PADUA – The Safilo Group’s board of directors has approved the company’s consolidated financial statements for the year ended Dec. 31, 2015, and examined the separate financial statements for the year ended Dec. 31, 2015, which will be submitted for approval by the shareholders at the company’s annual meeting to be held on a single call on April 27.
Safilo total net sales for the year equaled Euro 1,279.0 million, marking an increase of 8.5 percent thanks to a foreign exchange tailwind. At constant currencies, 2015 net sales were flat compared to 2014, reflecting differing business and market dynamics. The performance of the Group’s going forward brands portfolio – i.e. excluding all brands that Safilo stopped and will stop servicing – showed growth of 13 percent at current exchange rates and 4.3 percent at constant exchange rates.
At the operating level, 2015 gross margin moved from 61 percent to 59.2 percent of sales, while adjusted EBITDA margin stood at 8 percent of sales vs. 10 percent in 2014.
Safilo closed 2015 with an adjusted Group net result of Euro 6.9 million compared to the adjusted net result of Euro 44.5 million recorded in 2014. 2015 adjusted economic results do not include non-recurring costs for a total of Euro 60.5 million, mainly related to the impairment of the goodwill allocated to the Far East business and a provision related to an investigation of the French Competition Authority.
In 2015, the Group generated a free cash flow of Euro 74.8 million, further reducing the net debt to Euro 89.9 million from Euro 163.3 million in 2014.
This reflected the ongoing improvement in net working capital management, the proceeds from the sale of shares held in an associate company for Euro 8.6 million and the first of the three compensation payments of Euro 30 million from Kering received in January of 2015.
The board of directors has decided not to propose the payment of a dividend to the next annual meeting.
This press release may use “alternative performance indicators” not foreseen by the IFRS-EU accounting standards (EBITDA, net debt, net capital employed and free cash flow), and whose meaning and contents are illustrated in the specific section of the press release and in accordance with the CESR/05-178b recommendation published on Nov. 3, 2005.
Luisa Delgado, CEO of Safilo, said:
“2015, the first year of the 2020 Strategic Plan laid out during our investor day in March, was a period of intense activity for Safilo.
“Europe and the North America wholesale business performed well, together with the key emerging markets of Middle East & Africa and Mexico. We made good progress in the reorganization of the Asian business, introducing new leadership, capabilities and brand plans, while the market environment in Brazil remained very challenging.
"Our core strategic license brand portfolio continued to deliver excellent results in terms of product and collection reception with consumers and registered double-digit net sales growth, while our own core brands delivered mixed performance, primarily reflecting the short-term impact of our business reorganization and new brand platforms.
“We are committed to our 2020 strategies and goals. 2016 will be a further important year of transition, including the final period of the Gucci license, and we anticipate continued growth of our core license brand portfolio to be complemented with an acceleration of growth on our core own brands, and an increasingly visible impact of our cost savings and business transformation initiatives.”