For the fourth consecutive year, Company Paloma experienced positive operating results and market growth according to audited annual results. As compared with the preceding year, total revenue from sales rose by 2%, amounting to EUR 86.7 million in total, thus almost reaching the record-high revenue from sales generated in 2014. Compared to 2015, generated net profit rose by 127%, amounting to EUR 1.6 million in total, whereas operating earnings amounted to EUR 2.3 million in total. The company also launched major manufacturing modernisation investments, which marked one of the measures that contributed to an increase in productivity.

Tadej Gosak, CEO, said: ″Compared to 2015, Paloma sold 2% or EUR 1.6 million more worth of products. The largest growth in sales was recorded by the Private Label division, marked by the discontinuation of unprofitable transactions and their replacement with more profitable ones during the preceding year, which led to the manufacturing of sanitary items for the most successful Private Label brands. The ultimate success of these activities was demonstrated by a major increase in revenue from sales resulting from newly acquired transactions, since total revenue from sales of the Private Label division rose by 9% as compared with 2015. Our own brand product division also performed well by managing to preserve or even increase our market shares in strategic markets. In Slovenia, as of the end of 2016, Paloma had increased its value market share by 2% compared to the end of 2015. Its value market share was also increased in the Croatian market, whereas it was preserved in Serbia despite fierce competition.″

In 2016 Company Paloma has realized one of the biggest investment in last year in the paper machine 5 in the amount of 1.3 million euros, which is the launch of the new investment cycle. The goals is to modernize the production and to raise capacity. In 2016 the papermaking and ready-made paper article manufacturing divisions improved their performance compared to 2015. The papermaking division manufactured 67,000 tons of paper (marking an increase by 1,400 tons compared to 2015), and the ready-made paper article division manufactured 63,000 tons of end products (marking an increase by 2,666 tons compared to 2015). The capacity of Papermaking Machine 5 after the investment with the support of the European bank of reconstruction and development thus increased by 20% or 200 tons of paper per month. Additionally investments in the made-up paper article manufacturing division resulted in an increase in productivity, which is largely resulting from the investment in the C-ROL4 line. As a result, the level of productivity rose by 24% as compared with the preceding year, the increase of productivity was also measured on the C10-ROL and C11-ROL.

Tadej Gosak added: “We strongly believe that we have today strong foundations for the further development of Paloma. The investor supports our investment and strategic plans and as Paloma being now a part of a larger group of hygienic paper production companies we have already achieved some synergic results in purchase of pulp which is our most important resource. We will continually plan to enforce also our market position in the region of South-eastern Europe where market share of brand Paloma is growing.″

The Company Paloma has also from 5^th January 2017 a new supervisory board, which consists of Milan Fiľo, Miroslav Vajs, Richard Žigmund and Leonida Klemenčič Podmiljšak as the representatives of shareholders and Bojan Kolarič and Darinka Schmirmaul as the representatives of the employees.

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