LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), July 26 (SeeNews) – Slovenian household appliances manufacturer Gorenje [LJE:GRVG] said on Friday it turned to a consolidated net loss of 29.5 million euro ($32.9 million) in the first half of the year, from a profit of 0.4 million euro in the same period last year.
However, Gorenje Group bounced back to profit in June, after months of seeing losses, the company said in a filing to the Ljubljana Stock Exchange.
“The start of the year was challenging, as we struggled with losses for several months. However, our goal has always been clear: to effectively integrate Gorenje into the Hisense Group and thus enable long-term savings, optimise operations, and utilise appropriate measures to improve efficiency and profitability,” Gorenje chief managing director Chao Liu explained.
“This will not only lead to improved overall business performance but also allow for extensive investments we are planning in Gorenje locations in Slovenia and Serbia. We are pleased to see the joint efforts of both, the owner and all employees, lead to positive results after only a few months; this indicates that we are on the right path,” Chao Liu added.
China's Hisense Group became the owner of 95.42% of Gorenje in 2018.
In the first half of 2019 Gorenje's EBITDA fell to 12.4 million euro from 35.2 million euro in the same period last year.
Gorenje Group generated 567.5 million euro of sales revenue last year, up 1.6% on the year. “Of this amount, 523.4 million euro or 92.2%, was generated in our core activity of home appliances,” the group added.
“We achieved growth mostly in the markets of Eastern Europe (Romania Hungary, Czech Republic), also in somewhat smaller scale we increased our sales across Scandinavia, France and Spain. Unfavourable sales trends were seen mostly on the markets of Russia, Germany and the Netherlands,” Gorenje noted.
Investments amounted to 16.9 million euro in January-June, which is 6.8 million euro less compared to the last year's equivalent period.
In the January-June 2019 period, the Gorenje Group's average number of employees was 10.810 or an average of 191 less than in the same period last year
($=0.8975 euro)