Warsaw – Flexible foam sales at Pianki started to take off in the third quarter for 2020, but have not made up for ground lost earlier in the year, according Ciech, its parent company.
Ciech is a Polish chemicals conglomerate, with interests in soda ash, gas, polyurethane foams, crop protection products and silicate glass.
Pianki is reported in the organic division. This division also includes the crop protection business, which dominated results in the nine-month period, with revenue growing by more than 20%.
In the organic division, sales rose by 10.2% between the first nine months of 2019 and the same portion of 2020, and reached PLN453.4 ($120m).
Adjusted EBITDA in the division rose 25.7% to PLN40.1m in the first nine months of 2020. This compares with PLN31.9m in the equivalent period in 2019.
Like many other foam makers, Pianki has been having a tough time. Sales were down 4.7% compared with the first nine months of 2019.
The business was hit by trade restrictions and retail closures in the first quarter in the light of the coronavirus. '[There was] a significant increase in revenues in the third quarter when both planned sales and some of the orders not delivered in the previous quarter were completed,' the company said.
Overall, Ciech generated PLN2.2bn sales in the first nine months of 2020, down 13.5% on the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA across the business fell by 11.1% to PLN413.6m in the first nine months of 2020.
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