Targetti news - FINANCE - Targetti Group: Turnover for the year expected to grow with a double-digit increase compared with 2003.

The Targetti Group announces from London, where there is currently being held the road show of the companies listed in the Star segment of the Italian Stock Exchange, that they expect to close the year 2004 with the double-digit turnover’s increase compared with that of 2003.

The good trend of the first half of 2004 and the decidedly bright outlook for the forthcoming months have induced the Group to inform the London audience of international institutional investors that recent estimates suggest that the turnover growth for 2004 will be particularly positive.

The expected growth trend will be in line with the one experienced during the first quarter of 2004, with the forecast of a constant sales growth also in the second half of the year.

Furthermore, in the course of the presentation to the international financial community that is to take place tomorrow morning, the Group is due to announce the commencement of work for the new factory of Neri S.p.A., a Targetti subsidiary and leader in Italy in the sector of public lighting for exteriors and urban lighting fixtures.

The marked present growth, likely also to continue in the immediate future, has led the management to decide the construction of a new factory, which is to be built at Longiano (in the province of Forlì) on a site that comprises some 12,000 sq.m. The factory will come into production by the spring of 2006.

Completion of the entire project calls for an investment of 7 million euro and is to be wholly self-financed by the company, since – thanks to an excellent profit margin – Neri is in a position to generate the liquidity necessary for covering the investment.

The new production plant, conceived for the employment of machinery of the new generation, will enable Neri to rationalize the entire production cycle, assuring the possibility of manufacturing products of ever greater quality standards and containing both the costs and the times of responding to market needs. The operation aims both at the consolidation of Neri’s leadership in the Italian market, which as of 30^th June 2004 accounted for 82.4% of Neri’s turnover, and an expansion of the company’s exports.

The last four years have seen Neri become the protagonist of a continuous and intense growth that made the company double its sales and profits, arriving at a turnover of 16.7million Euro as of 30 June 2004, a growth of 24.5% as compared with the first six months of 2003.

Profitability was equally excellent, the company recording an EBITDA for the first half of the year equal to 21.4% of turnover and a before-tax result equal to 17.8% likewise of turnover.

“We are face to face with a market recovery”, affirms Lorenzo Targetti, Managing Director of Targetti Sankey S.p.A, “in the first six months of 2004 we already recorded a significant growth of sales and the further improvement realized in the course of the summer months leads us to be optimistic as regards our performance for the whole of 2004”.

“With a view to presenting ourselves in the best condition for the opportunities offered by a recovering market”, as Lorenzo Targetti continued, “we have intensified our industrial investments in the sector of public lighting of exteriors and urban light fittings, and the decision to go ahead with the new establishment of Neri S.p.A. has to be seen precisely in this context”.

“Due to the new factory”, so Lorenzo Targetti concluded, “we shall not only be able to further reduce our production costs and improve the quality of our products, but also to assure the productive capacity we need to sustain future growth both in Italy and abroad”.

Targetti Sankey S.p.A. also make it known that the meeting of the Board of Directors due to approve the data for the first half of 2004 is to be held on Wednesday, 29^th September 2004 at 11 a.m. at the company’s registered offices and not on 28^th September 2004 as previously announced.

Neri S.p.A., leader of the Group of the same name, have been engaged ever since 1962 in the production public lighting equipment for exteriors and urban lighting fixtures, combining technological innovation with sensitivity for maintaining and restoring the urban artistic patrimony. In the course of its activity the company has contributed to illuminating and valorizing more than 3000 municipalities in Italy and has participated in important international lighting projects. Neri S.p.A. has been a member of the Targetti Group since the year 2000.

The Targetti Group, with headquarters in Florence, are one of the leading protagonists in the sector of architectural lighting for both interiors and exteriors. The group companies produce and market sophisticated equipment – a perfect synthesis of technology and design – that illumines important works of art, including Michelangelo’s David, Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper and the Roman National Archaeological Museum and finds application in wide variety of different environments, among them Piazza della Scala in Milan, Singapore’s Opera House, the Airport of Madrid and Canton in China, the Bilbao Underground, the showrooms of Bulgari, Benetton, McDonald’s, Bang & Olufsen, Alfa Romeo and Peugeot and, not least, West McLaren Mercedes Technology Centre.