Debtless, Grupo Melhoramentos to invest US$ 32 million this year
Valor Econômico
After 15 years living with an indebtedness that got to R$ 280 million (US$ 149 million), Grupo Melhoramentos paid its debts selling the paper division six months ago to Chilean CMPC and starts 2010 with net cash of nearly R$ 60 million (US$ 32 million). These funds will be invested in the area of reforestation and in Editora Melhoramentos. The group also has real estate businesses that will not receive major investments this year. "The value of the investment in each of the areas is yet to be defined. But it will certainly be bigger than in the previous years because we have net cash now", said Sergio Sesiki, Investor Relations Officer of Melhoramentos.
The goal of the group for the reforestation division is to increase by 50% the production of pulp of the Camanducaia plant (MG). At Editora Melhoramentos - the publishing house -, there is an atmosphere of optimism. Besides receiving a bigger investment this year, the publishing house with strong operation in children's literature ended last year with growth of 22% in earnings, compared to an average of 8% in the previous years. "As great part of the market, we started 2009 fearing the crisis and we ran after new projects", said Breno Lerner, managing officer of Editora Melhoramentos. "As a result, we had great growth in institutional contracts with the Government and with companies. We also strengthened our direct sales channel. These two areas were responsible for 35% of our income. That percentage was 10% before", he affirmed.
The publishing house, which has an exclusive contract with Ziraldo and works with other renowned writers such as Pedro Bandeira, ended 2009 with a net operating income of R$ 50 million (US$ 25.4 million). The children's literature area represents 50% of that amount, 40% comes from the sale of the Michaelis dictionaries and the rest from the sale of cookbooks like Ofélia's, among others.
The editing and marketing departments of Editora Melhoramentos will receive an investment of R$ 3 million (US$ 1.6 million) this year, compared to the R$ 2.2 million (US$ 1.12 million) of 2009. "The total investment has not been defined yet. We are analyzing the investments required for new technologies in the editing segment that require large amounts of money", said Lerner, recalling that the Michaellis software was one of the best-sellers of the Apple store.
For this year, the managing officer of the publishing house said he rather be conservative and plans on repeating the earnings of R$ 50 million (US$ 26.6 million). "Despite the perspectives of greater consumption at the bookstores this year, we'll also have the FIFA World Cup, which makes us lose sales. Besides, the growth of 2009 was also motivated by contracts with the government, which may not be repeated", explained Lerner.