Lucchini RS Spa closed 2018 with a consolidated net profit of €29.3 million, with a slight increase compared to €28.6 of the previous year. Net revenues at the same time amounted to €444.4 million, recording an increase of eight percent.
These results were more than positive for the group led by Giuseppe Lucchini, although an increase of the purchasing prices of the main productive factors - (scrap, ferroalloys, electrodes and methane - negatively affected margins. EBITDA fell to 57.6 percent, compared to 60.9 percent in the previous year. However, profit, says the statement released by Lucchini, “has allowed the group to finance the investments made in plants during the year, maintaining an extremely low level of indebtedness, i.e., at about one fifth of the net equity”. Investments in 2018 amounted to around €33 million.
The performance of most of the group's subsidiaries was positive. Lucchini Unipart Rail (a British joint venture with Unipart Rail), Lucchini Sweden, Lucchini Poland, Lucchini Central Europe, Lucchini Tool Steel and the Chinese associate Zhibo Lucchini Railway Equipment registered a positive net result. Results were in substantial break-even for Lucchini Poland and Lucchini North America. On the other hand, the Belgian subsidiary LBX, Lucchini South Africa, and Lucchini Mamé Forge recorded losses. “Price competition and margins in the forged steel products sector in which the branch operates were very tight” explained Lucchini RS speaking of Lucchini Mamé Forge.
The group's foreign turnover was 79 percent of the total.
Lucchini RS S.p.A. is an Italian company, fully owned by the Lucchini Family. It is specialized on steel products such as railways products, steel casting, forgings, tool steels and forge ingots.