AkzoNobel has published its digital report 2021, which it says highlights how the company remains on course to achieve its strategic ambitions, despite a challenging year for the paints and coatings industry.
The report shows revenue of €9.59 billion and adjusted operating income of €1.09 billion. Adjusted EBITDA was €1.43 billion, which fell short of a targeted €2 billion. Return on sales was 11.4 per cent and return on investment was 16 per cent.
Automotive and Specialty Coatings generated €1.23 billion in revenue, 29 per cent of which came from Asia Pacific.
Thierry Vanlancker, AkzoNobel CEO and Chair of the Board of Management and Executive Committee, said 2021 was marked by a series of headwinds but the company coped well.
“We were able to safeguard our profitability and our Grow & Deliver strategy has remained on course. The reinvention of AkzoNobel as a focused paints and coatings company, which started in 2017, is clearly on track to make us the reference in our industry,” Vanlancker said.
“Although we were dealing with incoming supply chain disruption and inflation, demand for our paints and coatings remained strong and I’m very proud of how our teams held everything together inside our company, while making sure that we stayed close to our customers.”
Vanlancker said that while 2020 was marked by sudden shifts in demand across AkzoNobel’s paints and coatings market segments, 2021 was affected in a very different way.
“This time, the ongoing impact of COVID-19, combined with several extreme weather events early in the year, caused significant disruption across our supply chains. The overall availability and movement of raw materials was a real challenge for the whole paints and coatings industry. This resulted in significant shortages of key raw materials, which is still ongoing, and an unprecedented cost increase compared with 2020,” Vanlancker said.
He added the company found itself “climbing an unexpectedly high mountain” as the business environment became increasingly difficult, but AkzoNobel is in an “excellent position to accelerate along the other side of the slope”.
“The vast majority of our markets continued to rebound well, and we were able to expand our position in significant target markets,” Vanlancker said. “I’m very proud of how our teams demonstrated their new-found resilience. Our commercial teams responded quickly with pricing initiatives to compensate for the huge raw material cost inflation. Meanwhile, our procurement, R&D, and supply chain colleagues worked hard to continue serving customers in the face of the severe supply chain disruption.”