From flop to raise to success. Saxa Gres, specialized in ceramics, is looking for capital to finance growth. For this reason, the Lazio company has issued a bond listed on the Vienna market – the SaxaGres7%2013 – worth 75 million euro intended for professional investors.
Saxa Gres was born from the intuition of Francesco Borgomeo – president of the joint stock company – to recover the disused factory of Marazzi Sud and to reinvent it in a sustainable key and with an international outlet. Furthermore, with an agreement that lasted four years, all the workers - almost 100 - kept their jobs. For the production of ceramics (including the "infamous" cobblestones well known to the Romans) very sophisticated kilns are required which fire at very high temperatures: this is why Saxa Gres also intervened in the acquisition of the Ideal Standard plant in Roccasecca , with an agreement signed by the company, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Lazio Region and Invitalia, for a total investment of 29,5 million.
The newly issued bond provides for a six-monthly coupon of 7% (from December 30, 2018 to June 30, 2023), a significant security package for investors (pledge on shares, patents, mortgage on the Fenretino quarry and on the Anagni and Roccasecca plants, etc.) and the following purposes: transformation of investor financing to restart the Anagni plant, financing of the reconversion of Roccasecca, finalization of the purchase of the Tagina ceramics industry and financing of the capital necessary to ramp up the company.
The project is part of the circular economy, faithful to the philosophy according to which waste – in this case that coming from the San Vittore waste-to-energy plant near Frosinone, where the company is based – must be reused as resources. The direct issue bond loan was named “Grestone Bond”, paying homage to the material produced by the company, the grestone: a new cheaper and more performing stone made up of a mix of porcelain stoneware which includes up to 30% of materials from urban waste and which in terms of graphics, shapes and colors is able to reproduce natural stones.
The company also launched a industrial plan for the four-year period 2018-2022: in the first three months of 2018 it achieved revenues of 5,4 million and received orders for the whole of next year, estimating a growth of 10% until 2022 and exceeding 30 million in annual turnover. The revenues of the Roccasecca factory, on the other hand, will go from 40 million expected for 2019 to 90 million for each year from 2020 to 2022.
The company bases its business on a b2b approach and boasts a national and international network of investors and clients. The other frontier of grestone it is the public administration that finds itself having to pave and maintain its own roads. The mechanism of Green Public Procurement grants an advantage in public tenders precisely to companies that produce materials through green policies and the reuse of waste.
But what happens if this innovative and green business model is opposed to the Raggi administration's choice of a referendum for the elimination of the cobblestone from the road surface due to high costs? It is recent news that if on the one hand the junta - with a tweet entrusted to the official profile of the mayor - proposes the removal of the cobblestones from the Roman roads with heavy traffic, the councilor for public works Margherita Gatta has instead opened some openings for their maintenance , in some streets where they are considered more characteristic. We will soon see in which direction the Municipality of Rome will go.
