Adveo, Spanish leader in office supplies and services from traditional office supplies to electronic office supplies, facilities management and managed printing services has increased its net profit after minorities and discontinued activities by 20%. This is driven by the sale of the Industrial business last year that had a negative impact on the net profit of approximately 2.7 million euros.
Group revenue accumulated to September (approx. 724 million euros) has remained below the amount reached in the same period last year (- 8.5%) even though there has been a positive performance in the Traditional business (TOS) which increased by + 3% and the growth of value-added services offered to customers and vendors that have increased by 18%. Those figures, however, did not compensate the decline in revenues due to a weaker than expected sales of the electronic office supplies (EOS), mainly caused by weak European market, especially in Spain.
However, we must emphasize the good behavior of the gross margin in relative terms (improvement of 1%) due to the increased weight of traditional business (TOS), the improvement of the relative profitability in the electronic office supplies (EOS); and continuous improvements in operating costs, particularly employment costs (- 4%) and other operating expenses (-1%).
The Group has managed to reduce its net financial debt by 13%, closing the period in 130 million euros, implying an improvement of 19 million euros if compared to the 149 million euros of September 2013. Net financial expenses saw a 18.6% reduction, benefiting from the reduction in working capital and lower cost of debt.
In addition to this, ROACE (Return on Average Capital Employed) continued improving and reached 13,8% from the 10,6% of September 2013.
