We are one of the most international players in our sector, combining strong regional businesses across the Americas, EMEA, Asia and the Pacific. 

Across the world we are united by a common purpose, a clear and consistent strategy and a common set of behaviours that define the Aliaxis culture. 

But our success is built primarily on the strength of our local businesses and their close proximity to and detailed understanding of our customers on the ground. We rely on the entrepreneurial spirit of each of our divisional CEOs and their teams to deliver our strategy, which they tailor to local market conditions and customer demands and needs. They sit on our executive committee and play an equal role in devising and executing our Growth with Purpose objectives. 

Thanks to their dedication to serving customers and excellent knowledge of our markets, our teams have overcome the significant challenges faced by businesses in recent years, including supply chain disruptions, price volatility and COVID-related shutdowns. We’ve consistently weathered such challenges and, in the last two years, have continued to deliver earnings growth and solid operational cash flow generation despite them. 

Operating in more than 40 countries and combining this intense local focus with our global scale, we are more resilient and better able to balance the regional fluctuations in the global economy than many of our competitors. 

This has been particularly important in 2022. As the world emerged from the COVID pandemic only to be hit by rapidly rising inflation, high interest rates and soaring energy and raw material costs, some of our regions have been affected more adversely than others. 

Leading locally to best serve our customers

We have a market-leading position in most of the countries we operate in, holding top three positions in more than 80% of our markets, while also exporting some of our expert fitting solutions worldwide.  

We’ve built that strong market position on the foundation of well-known and well-respected brands, many of which have been serving customers for over 60 years. This includes IPEX in North America, Durman in Latin America, Nicoll in France, Ashirvad in India, and Marley in New Zealand and Philmac in Australia. Over a similar timeframe, FIP, based in Italy, has established a global market for its innovative valves and fittings and today serves customers in more than 85 countries. 

Market dynamics

Going to market with such a rich blend of local, regional and niche brands allows us to tailor our solutions directly to our customers’ demands, taking full account of local market conditions and regulatory requirements. 

From a strategic point of view our local teams are also fully empowered to deliver our Growth with Purpose objectives in a way that reflects the different dynamics in their markets. 

United globally

As a group, we are united by our shared purpose to bring solutions to the world’s water challenges and accelerate the transition to clean energy, and by our set of behaviours: “We dare, we care, we deliver”.

We also share four common priorities which affect our operations worldwide – to achieve operational excellence, with safety as the top priority; to enhance customer experience and innovation; to have a high impact on sustainability starting with the environment; and to develop the skills and talents of our colleagues, within a high-performance culture. 

Cross-fertilizing

We are constantly sharing ideas across our regions, so that we can cross-fertilize and bring breakthrough solutions developed by our local teams or our innovation hubs to other markets at speed, where appropriate. In 2022, we shared some 280 best practice ideas in the four common priority areas within a global competition framework. 

Bringing teams together

One of the highlights of 2022 was a 3-day management meeting in Montréal. We brought together 175 of our senior leaders from across the world to review progress on our Growth with Purpose strategy, exchange ideas and draw inspiration from each other.

After two years of working remotely and only being able to meet via our computer screens, the event, titled “Let’s Dare Together”, was hugely energising, creating a real buzz of excitement across the business. 

Navigating tough market conditions

Despite tough market conditions in 2022, we recorded another year of very strong results, with North America and the Pacific region performing particularly well. This was offset by weaker results in EMEA, India and Latin America, once again confirming the resilience of our global footprint. 

A strong housing market, continued investment in infrastructure and irrigation and careful commercial management underpinned the strong performance in North America, although we saw signs of slowing demand and faced volume challenges as the year came to a close. Growth in the APAC region was powered by a resilient building and infrastructure segment in Australia and sustained demand in New Zealand’s building market throughout the year. Our operational excellence programmes and commercial management also boosted performance. 

At the same time, we were challenged by inflationary pressures in the EMEA region and experienced a slowdown in activity in the second half of the year, as the impact of the Russo-Ukrainian war continued to be felt. India’s performance was impacted by PVC resin price volatility and CPVC margin pressures in the first half and by adverse weather in the peak agriculture season. With markets weakening, impacted by a deteriorating geopolitical environment, particularly in Chile and Peru, we saw weaker performance in Latin America, although demand in the building segment in Central America held up well. 

For the full year we reported total revenues of €4.3 billion, up 11.3% on 2021, and 46.7% ahead of 2020.  

Current EBITDA stands at €728.2 million, up 8% on a like-for-like¹ basis. While the CEBITDA margin of 16.8% was slightly down on the year before, it remains above 15% for the third consecutive year. We are still well on course for our Growth with Purpose target of €850 million EBITDA by 2025. 

These results are remarkable given the economic environment we are operating in and reflect the great work of our teams to overcome operational and market challenges while ensuring continued customer satisfaction. That will continue to be incredibly important in 2023 as the trading and economic environment remains volatile.  

Investing for growth

We are continuing to invest heavily in our future growth through this economic uncertainty, with total capital spending (excluding leases) of €325 million in 2022. This compares with €99 million in 2020 and €139 million in 2021. 

A big focus of that investment is on building new, state-of-the-art factories (in the US and India), new distribution centres (mostly, but not only, in the US) or in modernising and extending production facilities and recycling capabilities. We’re directing increased investment into automation, digitalisation and other operational excellence programmes that will boost both our productivity and our sustainability. 

Following the successful €1.6 billion refinancing of the business in 2021, we have the capacity to fund our growth strategy and to expand both organically and through acquisitions. In 2022, the purchase of Lareter in Italy and the completion of the Harco acquisition in the US were standout transactions.  

¹ 2021 adjusted on a pro-forma basis to reflect the impact of the acquisition of Harco Fittings LLC in April 2022, Aquarius Spectrum in August 2022, OptiRTC Inc. in November 2022 and Lareter in December 2022. Impact of FX excluded to reflect underlying performance at constant exchange rate.