Italian Stock Exchange-listed gases company SOL S.p.A has approved its Q1 2009 results, observing only a slight decline in sales due to the positive trend of less cyclical sectors such as food and healthcare.
Now approved by the company’s Board of Directors, SOL saw consolidated sales dip to €112.6m, down 0.9% when compared to Q1 2008 sales of €113.7m. EBITDA of €25.6m was also down, by 2.6% when compared against €26.3m in the same quarter last year.
SOL acts as holding company to a multi-nation group of 43 companies, with more than 1,800 employees, involved in the area of technical gases and home-care assistance, operating in 16 European countries. It is this strong involvement in the food & beverage and healthcare sectors that appears to have sustained the company’s sales in the last quarter.
Despite the deeply global economic crisis, which affected the traditional end-users of technical gases such as iron and steel, mechanical, chemical and electronics industries, the SOL Group noticed only a slightly decline in sales – due to the positive trend of less cyclical sectors like food, environment and healthcare.
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