“For Groupe SEB the first half-year was strong on strategic advances and excellent in terms of performance. The acquisition of EMSA will enable us to pursue our development in the very large and highly promising market of kitchen utensils and accessories. With the WMF acquisition project, we enter the very attractive professional coffee machine market and we strengthen our positions in Germany. Furthermore we seized the opportunity to purchase an additional 8% stake in the capital of Supor which brings our shareholding to 81%. These are important steps for our future development and we are pleased to see them become a reality. In operational terms, the Group posted a high-quality first half-year, aligning robust organic growth in sales, record operating result from activity, and excellent cash generation. The strength of these performances puts us in a good position to achieve a strong 2016 year while remaining vigilant to the changes in some markets. In these conditions, Groupe SEB objective for 2016 is to achieve an organic sales growth above 5% and an increase in operating result from activity above 10%”. With this words, Thierry de La Tour d’Artaise, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Groupe SEB, commented on the positive results reached by the company in the first half of the year. Groupe Seb achieved sales of 2,164 million euro, +2.4% compared to the same period last year (+6% like-for-like). Operating result from activity reached 172 million euro (+17.7% and +60% like-for-like) and net profit 62 million (+15%).
