“TenCate revenues have developed favourably from the second quarter of 2014 onwards. Fourth quarter revenues increased organically by 15%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2013,” said Loek de Vries, President and CEO.

Advanced Textiles & Composites

The Advanced Textiles & Composites sector recorded an organic increase in revenues of 2% to EUR 435.3 million in 2014. EBITA improved to EUR 27.2 million, and the EBITA margin amounted to 6.2%.

This sector's increase in revenues stems from composites for aerospace and automotive applications in the TenCate Advanced Composites market group. An increase was also recorded in the sales of industrial protective fabrics at the TenCate Protective Fabrics market group.

Protective Fabrics

TenCate Protective Fabrics recorded unchanged annual revenues, with growth in the fourth quarter making up for the shortfall in the first half of the year. The sales of industrial protective fabrics (TenCate Tecasafe and TenCate Tecapro) grew by 17%.

In the fourth quarter, TenCate benefited from strong catch-up demand from the US for TenCate Defender M material for army uniforms.

The process innovation relating to inkjet technology reached its marketing phase. In 2014, TenCate Outdoor Fabrics made a start with digitally-printed sun awning fabrics and tent cloth.

Advanced Armour

TenCate Advanced Armour saw its revenues decline organically by 17%. Although major new supply agreements were entered into in 2014, the deliveries relating to various agreements were slow to start. Growth was achieved in the law enforcement market of police forces and security services.

The development of the TenCate ABDS active blast countermeasure system is proceeding according to planning in a series of test phases in collaboration with the US Army Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM).

The 2014 profit growth of the Advanced Textiles & Composites sector was held back considerably the substantial operating loss at TenCate Advanced Armour.

Geosynthetics & Grass

The revenues of the Geosynthetics & Grass sector grew organically by 7% to EUR 538.7 million in 2014. In the reporting year, TenCate Geosynthetics achieved 4% organic revenue growth, despite the continuing pressure on government budgets that limited the market for geotextiles for infrastructure.

TenCate Grass recorded organic revenue growth of 11% in 2014. This growth was driven by a good revenue trend from both synthetic turf yarns and synthetic turf systems for sports and landscaping. In the United States, TenCate Grass successfully launched the GreenFields brand amid growing revenues.

Outlook for 2015

“TenCate expects to achieve growth in 2015 that is similar to that in 2014. This growth results from an increase in sales and marketing efforts, an improvement in market conditions of the synthetic turf activities, growth in protective fabrics and an acceleration of growth of aerospace composites,” said Loek de Vries.

“In recent years, TenCate has focused strongly on technology development and in the years ahead we must reap the benefits.”

www.tencate.com