Zreče, 26 April (STA) - Toolmaker Unior generated more than EUR 294 million in group sales revenue last year, 2.3% more than the year before. Net profit was down by half to EUR 4.9 million due to higher financing costs and lower profit generated by subsidiaries, shows the audited annual report published on Friday.
The core company recorded almost EUR 205 million in revenue last year, slightly more than in 2022, and a profit of EUR 227,000, down significantly from a EUR 5 million the year before.
The Zreče-based group employs just over 2,800 people, while the core company employs 1,614, 20 fewer than the previous year, as some of the workers were reassigned to a special subsidiary company set up at the end of 2022.
Outgoing CEO Darko Hrastnik, who will be succeeded by Robert Vuga in June, said 2023 had brought unpredictable challenges which the group tried to overcome the best it possibly could.
He said Unior had felt the impact of the macroeconomic situation mostly indirectly, through order fluctuation, but also directly, through notably higher financing costs.
In the second quarter of last year, a seven-year refinancing agreement was made to repay the loans, obtain additional liquidity needed to optimise working capital requirements, and secure financing for investments in the upgrade and expansion of production in the coming years.
Divestments were launched last year for non-core activities, including tourism, production of machine tools and steel, in a bod to reduce debt and increase the group's ability to finance development projects.
Despite challenges in the European automotive industry, Union's orders in their prime line of business - production of forgings - were mostly stable.
In the hand tools business, the multiplicative negative effects of the macroeconomic environment were coupled with a significant drop in orders in the cycling segment.
For the second year in a row, sales in the tourism segment were up. A number of investments were successfully carried out, most notably the construction and opening of the Mašinžaga Park in cooperation with the state, which transformed the Rogla ski centre into a year-round destination.
