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Fact Book 2014
Prysmian Group
2
Interview with CEO Valerio Battista
SUCCEEDING THANKS
TO A CONSTANT FOCUS
ON THE MARKET
“As managers with the responsibility to satisfy
the expectations of our stakeholders,
we keep a constant focus on value creation.”
So successful leadership owes much to the
superior solutions you can offer. Which part
of the business performed particularly well,
in particular compared to competitors?
The decisive contributions to our recent
successes have been made from the strategic
submarine cables and systems businesses.
These business segments posted strong
In 2014, Prysmian managed to maintain and
possibly strengthen its leadership in the global
cable industry: what was, in your judgement,
the main factor behind your success?
By keeping a constant focus on the market
and our customers, we achieved the profit
targets that we announced to the market.
This meant that we were able to reward our
shareholders with a proposed dividend in
line with 2013, despite the improvement in
net financial position, albeit only symbolic.
In 2014, we kept our promise to add value
to the businesses of our customers with our
top end products and systems
that satisfied,
and exceeded, their requirements.
growth and the optical cables part of the
business saw recovering volumes and
profitability.
It is particularly significant that our
encouraging results have been achieved in
the context of economic conditions that
remain challenging. Despite recovering
demand
for
some
business
types,
contrasting weakness remains in some of
the more cyclical sectors.
We also encountered technical issues
over the course of the year, namely in the
execution of the Western Link project, but
managed to successfully overcome them by
keeping in mind that the client always comes
first. In this context,
we have relentlessly
pursued our growth strategy, by focusing
on investments and on ongoing actions to
improve efficiency
. In other words, investing
in the future. I think that this is the right
way to reward our shareholders and always
protect our clients in terms of excellence,
quality and state-of-the-art technology. Our
strategy includes the awareness that what is
good for our clients is good for us.
Valerio Battista,
Prysmian Group CEO