After the 72nd anniversary of having debuted on the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV) on March 7, Lamosa Group it wants to continue in the market, since it finds “advantages” of being a public company, although the challenge is to increase its marketability.
“We want to continue being a public company because we believe that there are many advantages in terms of transparency, corporate governance and that is positive in the long term,” he said. Federico Toussaint ElosúaChairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of the company.
“We have been on the Stock Market since 1951,” he continued, so that has helped us to have not only access to investment and capital, but also to form a government and a culture of total transparency.”
Grupo Lamosa is a company with a history of more than 130 years, based in Monterrey, Nuevo León. It operates in the ceramic coatings and adhesives market, with its recent acquisitions (Grupo Roca in 2021 -a year still with a pandemic- and Fanosa in 2022), it ventured into the insulation and lightening business.
The shares of the station, which sells products under brands such as Porcelanite, Crest and Perdura, are not very tradeable.
Today, they are exchanged in 114.90 pesos in the BMVSince the beginning of 2023, its price has remained relatively stable, amid the strong volatility of recent weeks on the local and global stock market.
In the last five years, its share has generated a return of 174.50%, since on March 20, 2018, it reached a price of 41.80 pesos per unit. While the historical maximum has been 124 pesos, registered on April 5, 2022.
However, one of the main challenges for Lamosa in the stock market is that its share price reflects the value of the company.
This has been an almost generalized problem of the Mexican Stock Market, and from which the company that produces ceramic tiles has not escaped and has even been the reason why companies such as Grupo Lala, Bachoco and others have decided to leave the market. local stock market in the last three years.
In this sense, Jorge Touché, director of Administration and Finance of the Lamosa Group, stated: “We have a marketability challenge. We have to see how to increase the marketability of the company.”
The consensus of analysts that follow the issuer, such as Actinver and GBM, estimates a price of between 130 and 140 pesos per paper, already including the discount for low marketability. Lamosa is still below that range.
“Very few shareholders have sold shares because they continue to see the potential growth of the company. What we are doing is that the strategy and the results are clear and good. The other part is to improve communication to the market,” he added, in an interview, the in charge of the company’s finances.
He has not even ruled out a subsequent issuance of capital, to increase the marketability of his share, as long as a relevant acquisition opportunity presents itself.
For now, he assured, “we don’t have a specific project, but we hope that in the short term one can materialize, but nothing concrete,” said Jorge Touché.
A world class player
With the latest acquisitions, Lamosa strengthened its presence in the construction industry and expanded geographically in Brazil, Spain and the United States.
With its entry into Spain, it managed to extend the export of its products to the rest of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
Today, it is positioned as the second largest ceramic manufacturer in the world, with a presence in nine countries, including Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Guatemala.
Therefore, its next “growth avenue” through acquisitions, mainly, is in the South American and European markets, said the president of the Board of Directors of Grupo Lamosa.
Toussaint Elosúa considered that they will evaluate their entry into other regions and countries, such as India. In addition, he will strengthen its insulating and lightening division.
Today, Lamosa generates 52% of its income in Mexico and the remaining 48% from abroad.
“We have a great challenge ahead of us, the opportunity is there and the muscle that is being generated today from being a regional player will help us take advantage of the synergies to take a greater step forward,” said Federico Toussaint, who considered that the dispersion Geography is one of its main competitive advantages in terms of exchange rate, freight cost, logistics efficiencies and supply chains.
In line with its growth plan, during 2023, the company will invest 260 million dollars to increase its productive capacity and carry out technological updates, in the different countries where it has a presence.
In the coatings business, it consolidates 20 production plants, located in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Brazil and Spain, with a capacity of 213 million square meters produced.
In the adhesives segment, it reports 14 plants distributed in Mexico, Guatemala and Chile, with a capacity of 1.4 million tons produced. While in the area of adhesives and lightening agents it has 15 plants in Mexico, with a production that reaches 24,000 tons of expanded polystyrene (EPS) products.
Lamosa reported sales of 35,412 million pesos and a operating profit of 6,767 million pesos in 2022. In contrast, in 2019, a year before the pandemic, the results were 17,928 million pesos and 2,812 million pesos, in that order.
For this 2023, Federico Toussaint said that he expects sales to normalize towards the levels prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, since during the health crisis demand remained strong due to the fact that people stayed at home and began to remodel. As well as the cost of energy and freight have been adjusting downwards.
