June 17th, 2022
These good results allow the company to accelerate its investment plan with a focus on sustainability and to announce its ambition of carbon neutrality by 2045.
Roca Group, a world leader in the design, production and marketing of products for the bathroom space, closed the 2021 financial year with a turnover of 2.053 billion euros, 21.9% more than in 2020, due to the recovery of activity as a result of the new post-covid normality. The optimisation of processes, cost containment and its strategy of profitable and sustainable growth have enabled the group to obtain a net profit of 179 million euros, compared to 60 million the previous year. Ebitda was 401 million, up 31%.
Spain remained the Group's main market in terms of sales, recovering the trend of sustained growth recorded since 2014. The increases in Brazil and India were also significant, despite the devaluation of local currencies. China's performance was affected by the country's tightening credit policies, which have hampered the operations of large developers and local distributors.
The CEO of Roca Group, Albert Magrans, highlighted that "the involvement and effort of the entire workforce have enabled us to close the year 2021 with very positive figures". He also emphasised that "this recovery has been achieved despite operating in a context of rising inflation due to the increase in the cost of energy and raw materials, and thanks to the search for excellence in all the group's operations".
The company increased its investment effort to 124 million euros, up from 106 million in 2020, which was mainly allocated to sustainability, innovation, digitalisation and Industry 4.0.
Throughout 2021, Roca Group has continued to consolidate its acquisition policy, including the purchase of 75% of the bathroom furniture business of the Valencian group Royo, making it the world leader in this category; a ceramics sanitary ware plant in Ceará (Brazil) and the German company Sanit, specialised in the production of installation systems.
Last year, the company also closed the sale of its tile division to the Mexican industrial group Lamosa, one of the world's leading manufacturers in this sector, in order to concentrate its activity on the bathroom space business.
The group's commitment to transversal innovation materialised last year with the creation of Roca Group Ventures, a corporate venturing fund endowed with 25 million euros and aimed at investing in start-ups and entrepreneurial projects linked to the bathroom space, prioritising those that focus on environmentally friendly practices.
The good results for the year allow Roca Group to continue investing in its sustainability roadmap, promoting energy efficiency measures and reducing water consumption, waste generation and greenhouse gas emissions. In the last three years, the group has been able to reduce its carbon emissions by 25.9% despite the increase in sales and production during this period.
These efforts and investments are embodied in the announcement of its goal of carbon neutrality by 2045. A commitment aligned with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), led by the United Nations Global Compact and supported by Roca Group. SBTi defines a path for companies to reduce their emissions based on what climate science considers necessary to comply with the Paris agreement: to make efforts to limit global warming to 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels.
Last year, the company also reduced other of its main environmental indicators, such as water consumption, which fell by 25.7% compared to 2018. In addition, in 2021 Roca Group has launched an audit process of the integral water cycle to optimise its circular use and minimise the consumption of this resource.
