AkzoNobel publishes Q2 2011

AkzoNobel NV has announced revenue growth of 5% for the second quarter of 2011, driven by volume and price.
While the overall top-line development has remained strong, the demand pattern has been volatile during the quarter, particularly in the mature markets. High growth markets have continued to perform strongly overall.
As already reported towards the end of the quarter, the escalation of raw material costs, estimated to be around 20% higher year-on-year has impacted performance for the second quarter. Furthermore, there were several prolonged large site maintenance stops resulting in higher costs.
Consequently, EBITDA was €551M, 10% below the level of last year for the quarter. EBITDA margin remained at a healthy 13.4% level.
In September 2010, the company announced an Executive Committee to build on the company’s leadership positions by transferring best practices, adopting standard and consistent methodologies, and leveraging its scale.
As the next step in this process, AkzoNobel is implementing additional performance improvement measures and functional and operational excellence initiatives to sustainably underpin AkzoNobel’s performance. They will ensure that the company’s growth ambitions are delivered at or above the mid-point of its 13-15% EBITDA margin guidance. AkzoNobel will be announcing details of these measures in the second half of the year.
CEO Hans Wijers: "I am not satisfied with our performance in the quarter, despite positive volume and pricing developments. The recent months have been challenging and it does take time for price increases to work through. We remain on track to deliver our medium-term growth ambitions, and we continue to invest in our businesses as shown by our announcements in this quarter.
"In addition we are implementing additional performance improvement measures and functional and operational excellence initiatives.