Dopo aver guardato i buoni risultati reddituali del 2005, passiamo ad analizzare le dinamiche degli investimenti, del capitale, del debito e della forza lavoro.
After the good figures about profitability in 2005, we analyse the capex, capital employed, debt and employment data of the major Italian wine companies for 2005.
The capital employed continued to grow in 2005, with a +5.7%. In the last 5 years, the yearly growth was even higher at +7%. The weight of debt is slightly but steadily increasing and reached 52.5% of the invested capital against 52% in 2004 and 50% in 2000.
Dall’evoluzione del capitale investito e’ evidente che le aziende stanno investendo. Nel 2005, gli investimenti hanno raggiunto i 228 milioni per le societa’ del campione, un +8% rispetto all’anno prima, ma senza un’evidente tendenza alla crescita; in realta’ guardando il grafico, si nota come gli anni dei grandi investimenti (2002-2003) sono dietro di noi e, forse, siamo in una fase di riduzione del loro livello. Ad ogni buon conto, il livello degli investimenti al 6.5% del fatturato resta piuttosto elevato, soprattutto se rapportato al rapporto Margine Lordo/Fatturato dell’11%.
From the evolution of the capital employed it is clear that companies are investing quite a lot. In fact, 2005 capex reached 228m for the sample, with a growth of 8% vs. 2004. However, if you look over the medium term, the peak of yearly capex of 2002-03 is behind us and, maybe, the sector entered in a downtrend of capex. Anyhow, when looking at capex/sales ratio at 6.5% we can again say that it is pretty high, particularly if compared to the EBITDA margin which is in the region of 11%.
The return on capital shows a rebound vs. 2003-04 which takes the return on capital ROI at 7.2% and the return on equity ROE at 8.2%. As you know this number is quite misleading (as many other…) since it factors in the cooperatives, which are not maximising profits. They have lower returns (ROI of 3.4% vs. 9.7% aveage and ROE of 4.3% vs. 11.3%). We could also say that the cooperatives (when compared to the other Italian companies, so excluding the ones owned by foreign opeators) show higher debt (64% of capital emplyed vs. 49%), lower margins (value added on sales of 16% vs. 23%, a slightly less level of exports (42% of sales vs. 44%), but they also invest a bit more (1% of sales vs. private operators).
Lastly, we give a look to personnel level which is constantly growing. Up 4% in 2005, up 4.3% yearly since 2000. The productivity is however declining, with sales per employee which continued to decline (-3.6%) in 2005, following the negative trend started in 2004 (-4%).


Una chiave di lettura sul dato Fatturato/dipendente potrebbe essere che si sta assumento principalemente personale amministrativo piu’ che forza vendita. 2 intermpretazioni non escludentesi:
1- molte aziende hanno raggiunto una dimensione tale da richiedere un certo tipo di organizzazione che va al di la del “facciamo tutto in famiglia”.
2- gli adempimenti organizzativi sono sempre piu’ pesanti
mi corrego:
gli adempimenti amministrativi sono sempre piu’ pesanti