Eurofins puts profit hope in upgraded labs

The analytical testing group finalised its planning to bring all the laboratories it has acquired up to Eurofins’ standards in the fourth quarter of 2009. The costs of this process in the last year, amounting to €40m (including a €30m accounting charge), mean reporting a net loss in full year 2009 of around €12m.

However at a conference with senior managers today, CEO Dr Gilles Martin will explain that there is underlying profitability in the year’s unaudited figures, when the costs of upgrading and reorganising are taken out. Pre-cost EBITDA was €92m, and EBIT €54m.

The majority of the upgrades have already been complete. While a company spokesperson told NutraIngredients.com that the majority cover Eurofins’ environmental and pharmaceutical practices, a new vitamins centre of excellence in Denmark is the result of a couple of year’s investment.

With a parallel vitamin centre in Des Moines, Iowa, USA, Eurofins prefers to concentrate all its vitamin testing in one location per continent. This, it says, means it can provide “reliable results based on internationally recognised reference methods at very attractive turn-around times and competitive prices”. ​

A major project in the works involves moving food testing to a new site in Wolverhampton, to which it will transfer its existing, dated labs. Elsewhere in Europe, smaller food labs are being consolidated into larger ones.

In Asia there are early stage plans to invest in labs in China and Japan to serve multinational companies exporting from that region.

In total Eurofins has around 150 laboratories in 30 countries.

€1 billion vision ​

Eurofins has a mid term goal of reaching €1bn in revenues. This goal is being reaffirmed at today’s conference, but the global recession meant no significant process was made towards it last year, and no global acquisitions.

Unaudited revenues for the year were €640m, up from €632.8m in 2008.