Croatia's Nexe Grupa invests 115 mln kuna (15.3 mln euro) in 2020

Investment at cement producer Nexe d.d. targeted both capacity expansion and increased use of alternative fuels, the group said in a statement on Tuesday.

Last year's investments also included an upgrade of an oven and reconstruction of driers at ceramic tiles manufacturer Dilj d.o.o. which helped make energy savings and improve the efficiency of the production line.

The group's arm in Serbia, AD Polet IGK, invested in automation of the drying process at its factory in Novi Becej and in implementation of a robot at its bricks factory in Sremski Karlovci.

“These are just some of the important project that we will follow also in 2021, which we enter with a reduced overall debt of the group and lower costs of financing thanks to the refinancing of the group's debt at the end of last year,” CEO Ivan Ergovic said.

The Nexe group posted a consolidated net profit of 153.19 million kuna for last year, higher than the profit of 107.09 million kuna reported for 2019, it said in a bourse filing last week. Its EBITDA surged 35.22% year-on-year to 281.3 million kuna in 2020, as consolidated sales revenue rose 7.0% to 1.104 billion kuna.

The shareholders of parent company Nexe d.d. and Nexe Grupa decided on Tuesday to merge Nexe Grupa into Nexe d.d in order to simplify organisational structure, cut costs and improve the management of human resources, according to the statement. The transaction does not involve a share capital increase. The shareholders of Nexe Grupa will receive for each share that they own 0.075598761 shares in Nexe d.d.

(1 euro=7.4964685 Croatian kuna)