In January-March 2022, Suominen’s net sales decreased by 4% from the comparison period to €110.3 million ($116 million). Sales volumes decreased while sales prices increased following the higher raw material prices. Currencies impacted net sales positively by €4.6 million ($4.8 million).

Suominen has two business areas, Americas and Europe. Net sales of the Americas business area were €61.7 million ($64.9 million) and net sales of the Europe business area were €48.5 million ($51 million).

Petri Helsky, president and CEO, comments: “For Suominen the beginning of 2022 has been challenging as was expected. Certain key customers especially in the U.S. continued to struggle with their inventory levels. Furthermore, in the early part of the year both our and our customers’ operations were affected by the omicron variant of the Covid-19. Both of these factors impacted our sales negatively. On the cost side we have seen further sharp increases in raw material, energy and freight costs. Due to the lag in our sales pricing mechanisms our pricing in the first quarter did not fully reflect these increases.

“We condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and we feel deeply for all Ukrainians whose lives have been devastated by Russia’s incredulous aggression. The war has minor direct impact to Suominen’s business as we have had no suppliers in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and only very few customers in Russia. Since the war started, we have stopped all sales to Russia. Suominen as a company is mostly affected by the indirect economic impacts of the invasion which contribute to the significant cost inflation mentioned above.

“Our net sales were €110.3 million (115.3) in the first quarter. Sales volumes decreased from the Covid-19 boom levels while sales prices increased clearly following the higher raw material prices. Our quarterly EBITDA was €3.3 million (18.5). The main reasons for the decline were the lower volumes and the timing gap between our customer pricing and raw material, energy and freight costs which increased even more than the sales prices.

“To improve our financial performance, we have launched an EBITDA improvement program to identify both new sales opportunities and cost savings initiatives. As an example of actions taken, we implemented an energy surcharge to all our products sold in Europe in mid-March. Also, as the inventory issues in the U.S. are mainly related to a certain product group, we have been working to widen the product portfolio at the production lines especially affected by the inventory imbalance.”