August 28 (SeeNews) - Slovenian integrated hygiene and tissue paper producer Paloma said it turned to a net loss of 3.7 million euro ($4.1 million) last year from a 1.29 million net profit in 2017 due to high cellulose prices.
"The year 2018 for Paloma has been one of the hardest periods in the company's history," Paloma said in its financial statement published earlier this month. "The increase of cellulose prices by more than 25% in the second quarter of 2018 had a serious impact on the business results."
The company, however, sees its net sales revenue rising some 10% to 91 million euro in 2019 and expects to turn to positive EBITDA of 2.17 million euro from last year's negative of EBITDA 2.0 million euro.
In 2018, net sales declined to 81.9 million euro from 84.4 million euro a year earlier, the statement said.
Sales of Paloma-branded goods contributed 44% of the total net sales in 2018, while the remaining 56% came from sales of other brands. The main sales items were toilet paper and paper tissue.
Germany accounted for most of Paloma's net sales, with revenues on this market slightly rising to 26.8 million euro from 26.6 million euro in 2017.
It was followed by Slovenia, where net sales fell to 13.8 million euro last year from 14 million euro a year earlier. Third came Croatia, which also saw net sales decline - to 9.3 million euro from 10.7 million euro.
($=0.9022 euro)