Global Olive Oil Giant Deoleo at Brink of Dissolution

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The Spanish multi­na­tional olive oil pro­cess­ing com­pany Deoleo, the world’s largest bot­tler of brands like Carbonell, Hojiblanca and Kiope sold in more than 80 coun­tries, is fal­ter­ing.

The com­pany ended 2016 with a loss of €179 mil­lion and such fig­ures have placed the firm in a state of near dis­so­lu­tion, accord­ing to sev­eral reports in the Spanish press.

The com­pany has reg­is­tered dete­ri­o­rated assets of €96.3 mil­lion in a bid to restruc­ture itself toward a sta­ble finan­cial base.

Due to the price increase of the olive oils at their ori­gin, the company’s turnover fell to €695.2 mil­lion in 2016, a 15 per­cent drop. At the same time, sales dropped by 22 per­cent as a con­se­quence of a strate­gic deci­sion to make prof­itable sales a pri­or­ity.

The com­pany ended the fis­cal year with net finan­cial debt of €533 mil­lion, which was only 1.5 per­cent higher than 2015, and the debt was lower in the final trimester of 2016 than it was in the trimester the year before.

The oper­at­ing assess­ment was pos­i­tive for the com­pany with a gross oper­at­ing profit (Ebitda) of €46.1 mil­lion, an increase of 30 per­cent, in 2016. Meanwhile, the Ebitda/sales mar­gin expe­ri­enced an increase of 52.4 per­cent in respect to the for­mer tax year, which demon­strated the company’s focus to improve prof­itabil­ity, the reports said.

The Spanish multi­na­tional also had a good finan­cial result with its busi­ness unit in south­ern Europe that saw a tripling of the Ebitda in 2015, plac­ing its fig­ure at €15.8 mil­lion.

Deloeo has stated that its strat­egy is focused on con­sumers’ needs and the qual­ity of its prod­ucts. The multi­na­tional said it had begun the adjust­ment of the group’s assets and other resources in order to fol­low through on its objec­tive to pro­vide qual­ity olive oils to its cus­tomers.

The com­pany has decided to sell a fac­tory in the Spanish city of Antequera and it has a new plan for the Italian fac­tory in Inveruno and, at the start of this year, it plans to dis­miss of work­ers in its offices and indus­trial fac­to­ries in Spain.

Spain is the lead­ing global pro­ducer of olive oils and the reshap­ing of Deoleo — the world’s largest olive oil com­pany — is seen as an impor­tant bell­wether for the sec­tor’s suc­cess in the long term.

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