Accell Group Continues to Struggle in North America

Heerenveen, The Netherlands – Accell Group has announced its financial results for 2018 revealing that Net revenue for the entire group was 1.09 billion, an increase of 2.4% from the 1.07 billion revenue of the previous year. However, the group's earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) in 2018 was 33 million down from 38 the previous year. Total net profit for Accell Group increased from € 10.5 million to € 20.3 million in 2018.

Accell's financial performance was hindered once again by poor results from its North American division, which continues to struggle and showed EBIT of -21 million. Accell had previously announced in December that it was splitting off it's North American division's results from its 'core' business in financial statements.

The latest statement from Accell revealed that core revenue totaled 1.03 billion and EBIT of core business came in at €54 million (5.2% of net sales), and excluding incidental expenses at € 58.9 million (5.7% of net sales).

Accell Group CEO, Ton Anbeek noted, “2018 was an important transition year, a year in which a strong foundation for the future of Accell Group was laid. After the announcement of the sharpened strategy 'Lead Global. Win Local’ in March 2018 we changed the structure of our organization and made additional costs for the further implementation of the strategy, especially investments in e-commerce, marketing, innovation and IT. From August 2018 onwards all regional and central teams have been up to strength and we are rolling out our omnichannel distribution strategy. In the second half of 2018 revenue growth accelerated and we achieved an improvement in the added value margin for the full year. Looking back on the year, we are satisfied with the progress made and the achieved results, strengthening our confidence in the strategy.”