Assofermet study: Italian recycling industries increased turnover by 64.5%

The conference presenting Assofermet's sector study on metal recovery and recycling in Italy presented the first research in Italy on scrap metal recovery and auto wrecking plants. Carried out together with Cerved, the study highlighted the important state of health of the sector: between 2019 and 2021, there was an increase in turnover (over 64%), gross operating margin and the total number of employees for the active companies.

The Italian scrap and auto wrecking sector consists of a total of 7,457 companies. Of the total number of companies, 65.9% are mainly engaged in the wholesale of scrap metal, 20% have scrap metal and scrap metal recovery as their main activity, and 14.1% are auto wreckers.

Corporations account for 41% of the companies analysed. According to the latest available data (2021), the total turnover of the 2,704 active corporations is €16,926,487,000. 72.31% of the companies have a turnover of less than €5 million, while 20.3% have a turnover between €5 and €25 million; the balance sheets of 7.39% of the companies exceed €25 million. Scrap wholesale companies are responsible for more than EUR 9 billion in turnover, i.e. more than half of the overall figure.

The budgets for 2021 show an overall growth of 64.5 per cent in turnover compared to two years earlier, when it was just over EUR 10 billion (in 2020 the figure was around EUR 9.5 billion). As far as 2022 is concerned, forecasts and filed balance sheets indicate a slight decrease compared to 2021: EUR 16.8 billion, which is even higher than in 2019. For 2023, on the other hand, a budget forecast of EUR 18 billion is expected. The trend of the gross operating margin (EBITDA) in the years analysed sees a significant rise: from just under EUR 400 million in 2019 to EUR 439 million in 2020, to a margin of EUR 1.2 billion in 2021. Levels are expected to be stable in 2022 and 2023.

To complete the picture of an industry in excellent health, the number of employees of active corporations, which stood at 14,767 in 2019, has also increased: 16,349 people will be employed in 2021, i.e. a growth of 10.7% and an average of just over 6 employees per company. A final piece of data on active joint stock companies relates to tangible assets: the total value is EUR 1.45 billion, largely held by scrap recovery plants (40.59%) and wholesale companies (37.05%).

Source: Assofermet, Photo: Fotolia