Diaz hails 'best ever' BioMar results
Carlos Diaz, chief executive of global aquaculture feed group BioMar, said the company has delivered the ‘best financial results ever’, despite difficulties and lack of volumes in important markets such as Chile.
In 2016 BioMar Group delivered a significantly improved EBIT compared to 2015, from DKK 447 million (£52m) in 2015 to DKK 581m (£68 million) in 2016. At the same time working capital was reduced from DKK 752m (£88m) to DKK 414 million (£48m), leading to a strong cash flow from operations. Revenue ended up slightly lower than last year with a modest increase in volumes.
“We are very happy to deliver the best results ever in BioMar Group and strong numbers for some years in a row, despite the fact that we have faced difficulties and lack volumes in some of our important markets, especially Chile due to the algae bloom and strikes,” said Carlos Diaz, CEO BioMar Group.
“This results have been achieved by dedicated employees being customer centric, working externally as well as internally to deliver high level of innovation, cooperation, sustainability and performance.”
Shaping the future
“It is clear that our new strategy ‘Shaping The Future’ is leading to tangible results. We decided to continue as the only focused global aquaculture feed company enhancing local agility and global excellence. I firmly believe that we start to see how we are differentiating ourselves from our main competitors being close to the customers in the markets and delivering customer focused global innovation with short time to market.
“We are optimistic about the future even though we will be facing highly competitive markets. We have in 2016 planted various seeds to ensure our future growth and profitability. First of all we opened our factory in Turkey, now being directly present in the second largest market in Europe.
“Secondly we planted a solid footprint in China. We started the construction of a new factory in Wuxi and acquired another in Haiwei in the south of China.
Gas-driven ship
“Thirdly we are progressing as planned with the construction of a new line in Karmøy as well as additional logistic investments including our new gas-driven ship in order to increase flexibility – bringing the Norwegian capacity up to 600,000 tons.
“And on top of these expansions we fortified our organisation making us ready for the challenges of tomorrow. One example is building a global R&D Centre with a strong link to the business and with own high-end trial facilities in Europe as well as America, where we started the ATCPatagonia Centre, a state of the art facility in Chile”.
