(Finance) – There are 7,457 companies in Italy that deal with the wholesale trade of scrap (65.9%), recovery of scrap and metal waste (20%) and car demolition (14.1%). 41% of the companies in the sector are made up of joint-stock companies, responsible for over 90% of the total turnover. Between 2019 and 2021 there was an increase in the number of employees and turnover (over 64%), which is also expected to grow in 2023 for active joint-stock companies. This is what emerged from the sector study by Assofermet on the recovery and recycling of metals in Italy, presented during the event Ecomondo 2023. This is the first research in Italy on scrap metal recovery and car demolition plants. Carried out together with Cerved, the study highlighted the important state of health of the sector.
From the report presented, therefore, between 2019 and 2021 there was an increase in turnover for active joint-stock companies (over 64%), of the gross operating margin and the total number of employees. The Italian scrap recovery and car dismantling sector is made up of a total of 7,457 companies. 65.9% of the total companies deal mainly with the wholesale trade of scrap, 20% have the recovery of scrap and metal waste as their main activity and 14.1% are car dismantlers.
Joint stock companies represent 41% of the companies analyzed. According to the latest available data (2021), the total turnover of the 2,704 active joint-stock companies is equal to 16,926,487,000 euros. 72.31% of companies have a turnover of less than 5 million euros, while 20.3% recorded a turnover of between 5 and 25 million euros; The budgets of 7.39% of companies exceed 25 million euros. Companies dealing with the wholesale trade of scrap are responsible for more than 9 billion euros in turnover, i.e. more than half of the overall figure.
THE 2021 financial statements indicate an overall growth of 64.5% in turnover compared to two years earlier, when it was just over 10 billion euros (in 2020 the figure was around 9.5 billion). As regards 2022, the forecast budgets and the deposited balance sheets indicate a slight decrease compared to 2021: 16.8 billion euros, an even higher figure compared to 2019. For 2023, however, a forecast budget of 18 billion euros. The trend of the gross operating margin (GOM) in the years analyzed sees a significant rise: from just under 400 million euros in 2019 to 439 million in 2020, up to a margin of 1 billion and 200 million in 2021. It is expected that levels are stable in 2022 and 2023.
To complete the picture of a sector in excellent health, too the number of employees of active joint-stock companieswhich stood at 14,767 in 2019, increased: 16,349 people employed in 2021, i.e. growth of 10.7% and an average of just over 6 employees per company. A final piece of data on active joint-stock companies relates to tangible fixed assets: the overall value is 1.45 billion eurosheld largely by scrap recovery plants (40.59%) and by companies dealing with wholesale trade (37.05%).
Although partnerships and sole proprietorships represent more than half of the companies analyzed (59% of the total), their overall turnover is significantly lower than joint-stock companies, amounting to just over 896 thousand euros. In 2021, 69.76% of these companies reported a turnover between 50,000 and 250,000 euros, while 7.33% recorded less than 50,000 euros in turnover. Finally, an interesting fact emerged in relation to the companies involved in the scrap trading as a secondary activity: their total turnover in 2021 was almost 7 billion euroswhich suggests that their core business lines contribute significantly to the company’s balance sheet.
“With this study we wanted to demonstrate the importance of the sector represented by Assofermet. The recovery activities of scrap metal are decisive both in terms of contribution to the GDP and for the social impact of the companies in our sector, where more than 19 are active thousand employees. These are companies that have a strategic value in some of the most important supply chains for the Italian and international economy. Just think, for example, that 80% of national steel production occurs precisely from the recycling of scrap ferrous,” he said Laila Matta, President of Assofermet Rottami. Laila Matta also commented that the high number of companies present in Italy is a symptom of the strong widespread presence of the sector’s realities throughout the entire national territory.