PERFORMANCE REMAINING SOLID AFTER TWO RECORD YEARS

Sales remain satisfactory

In a year 2012 marked by a sluggish economic environment and a highly competitive, promotion-driven environment, Groupe SEB reported 2012 revenue of €4,060 million, up 2.4% as reported and down 0.9% like-for-like (i.e. at constant exchange rates and based on a comparable scope of consolidation), reflecting several elements:

• Diverse activity from one region to antoher: Europe under considerable pressure; Asia-Pacific penalised by the slowdown in China; well-directed activity in North America and Russia; the trend was positive in South America in the latter part of the year;
• €20M positive impact of changes in scope of consolidation, including two additional months of Imusa and five for Asia Fan. The Group has decided not to consolidate its 55%-owned Indian subsidiary, Maharaja Whiteline, because of lack of reliability in the company’s reporting at year-end.
• Highly currency volatility reflected in an exchange rate effect of +€114M (compared with -€26M in 2011).

A mesure decline in Operating result from activity

After the historic record in 2011, which constituted a challenging basis, the operating result from activity amounted to €415M in 2012 (-8.7% compared with the revised 2011 operating result from activity) due to the combination of several factors:

• a negative volume effect due to subdued sales and measures to draw down inventories;
• very tight control over the raw material procurement processes and a limited increases in product outsourcing costs;
• a steep reduction in operating costs;
• a very unfavourable currency effect, including the strongly negative impact on purchases of gains in the dollar and the yuan against the euro in 2012.

Lower operating profit and net profit

The operating profit amounted to €368M, down 8.5% on the 2011 revised operating result. This was after discretionary and non-discretionary profit-sharing of €48 million (versus €44 million in 2011), including in particular the impact of the higher “forfait social” tax in France and the Group’s matching payments under last autumn’s employee shareholder plan. The financial result is -€63M, including a rise in financial charges on the debt – due to the increased average debt, higher in 2012 than in 2011 – and impairment charge on the shares in the Indian company Maharaja Whiteline.

Profit attributable to equity holders of the parent amounted to €194 million versus €235 million in 2011.

A healthy financial situation

As of 31 December 2012, consolidated equity amounted to €1,462M and the financial debt to €556M, compared with €673M a year earlier. This reduction is largely due to the high level of cash generated from operations, and represents the best performance of the last three years. These figures confirm Groupe SEB’s robust financial position.

Dividend

The Board of Directors decided to recommend setting the 2012 dividend at €1.32 per share, an increase of 5.6% over the previous year.

2012 Full Year Results webcast.