INTERNATIONAL
Elis, the leading multi-services group in Europe and Latin America, specialising in the rental and maintenance of flat linen, professional clothing, hygiene and well-being appliances, announced its revenues for the three months ended 31 March 2018. Xavier Martire´, CEO of Elis, said: “With organic revenue growth of +3.1% in Q1, Elis’ growth is accelerating compared to Q4 2017.”
The performance was driven by outstanding commercial momentum in Latin America where Elis continues to open the rental and maintenance market. Trends were also generally favourable in the Group’s other market, where recent acquisitions continue to drive growth, especially Lavebras in Brazil and Berendsen in UK, where the integration plan is showing good progress.
“In the UK, we continued to adjust the operational structure and the first industrial measures we implemented have already generated productivity gains, said Martire. “The English market is showing reassuring signs, with satisfying price levels and a healthy competitive landscape. In Scandinavia, we rationalised some central costs and are currently rolling-out Elis’ multi-services approach. In Germany, we initiated some logistics enhancements as well as some projects to improve industrial processes in lower-performing plants.”
“For the full-year 2018, we expect margin to be flat in France, despite the negative impact from CICE and the increase in several taxes on energy. The ongoing integration of Berendsen, along with the momentum we see in Elis’ historical scope, lead us to target margin improvement in all other geographies.
“We will continue our targeted acquisitions strategy in our existing geographies, like we did in Germany in March with BW Textilservice and with A&M in Belgium in April,” he added. “These acquisitions have very limited impact on our leverage ratio because of their small size and the low multiples paid by the Group. Our solid cash-generation pattern will contribute to reduce our leverage in 2018.”
