Cremona, 27th July 2005 – In the last few days the General Shareholders Meeting of the Arvedi Group was held under the chairmanship of Giovanni Arvedi and the balance sheet of the year to 31st December 2004 was approved.

In 2004 the Arvedi Group registered a net improvement in income (+38.6%) with a turnover of Euro 942.905 million (Euro 680.311 million in 2003).

EBITDA grew noticeably in the last year (+47,5%) reaching a level of Euro 111.177 million (Euro 75.355 million in the previous year), an increase as a percentage of turnover from 11.1% in 2003 to 11.8% in 2004.
Profits from ordinary operations also saw a net growth, from Euro 30.093 million in 2003, reaching Euro 59.377 million last year.
ROI of 17.9% and ROE of 22.7% confirm good profitability.

The Arvedi Group closed the 2004 financial year with a net profit of Euro 29.513 million, a considerable improvement compared with the Euro 5.046 million of net profit registered in 2003. The year’s result was also obtained thanks to the favourable phase of the market in which the Group operated, in particular Acciaieria Arvedi S.p.A which has seen sales prices reach record levels and the differential with respect to the cost of scrap (also on the rise) widen by about 30% compared with the previous year, which in itself was already satisfactory.

The Group’s overall net debt was reduced by Euro 58 million to Euro 209.707 million compared with the Euro 268.416 million of the previous year.

In 2004 the Arvedi Group continued its plan of investments aimed at maintaining and completing its plant assets. In the course of the year activity for the development of AST (Arvedi Steel Technology) know-how and technology continued. The use of this technology allows the Arvedi Group, which owns the patents, to develop very high quality products at competitive costs and generate considerably higher added value. In the course of 2004 the Group, together with Voest Alpine (a leading Austrian steelmaking plant manufacturer) signed an agreement with the Russian steelmaking group Maksi for the construction of a new works in Togliattigrad (Russia) able to produce, using this technology, 2 million tpy of steel.

Also worthy of mention among the companies which are part of the Arvedi Group are the outstanding results of Ilta Inox S.p.A and Acciaieria Arvedi S.p.A. Positive profit margins were also obtained by ATA S.p.A and Arinox S.p.A.

In this last year the Arvedi Group counted 1,595 employees.

The trend in the first few months of 2005 shows a still positive market situation. If expectations prove correct, therefore, the Arvedi Group foresees favourable results also for 2005 and in particular a further noticeable reduction of debt and consequent reinforcement of its assets structure which at the end of the year should show a debt / net worth ratio close to one.