Not one year is the same!

2020 was characterized by covid and shutdowns, political decisions related to that created a dramatic slowdown in demand and a fast and powerful recovery that followed, all within the same calendar year. 2021 was heavily affected by the consequences of these decision in the form of great supply issues, long leadtimes and great disturbances in the transport market. Brexit didn’t help that situation for our business either.

When we entered 2022 we were hoping for some kind of normalization, of society, the world and the markets that affect us. We know that reality turned out completely different. Russias invasion of Ukraine has changed Europe for the foreseeable future and we may be in the beginning of a new cold war. Unbalances created by covid shutdowns began, together with excessive economic stimulis, to lead to cost increases on raw materials, transport etc. These were then accelerated in many areas due to the Ukraine conflict. Altogether this characterized 2022, with cost increases and price increases of raw materials and transports that we hadn’t seen the equivalent of. This situation affected much of what we did at ACM in 2022, a constant dialogue with suppliers, forwarders and customers concerning cost development. This situation isn’t completely over and there is still great uncertainty, however we see that prices are leveling out and in some cases even starting to decrease. We hope that this trend will persist, both for businesses to be able to recover and for the general inflation to start to ease off.

Despite the very turbulent environment ACM has made it ok through 2022. The volumes have gone down in certain segments, especially during the second half of the year. Strongest neagtive trends we have seen in industrial coatings and customer with close connection to the construction industry. Our extended contract with Imerys, that we informed of at the end of 2021, has given us more new volumes than expected, which has compensated for drops in other areas. This new business and our focus on handling price- and cost increases the best way for us and our customers allows us to end 2022 with a good result. Going into 2023 there is of course still uncertainty regarding economy, costs increases and geopolitics. However, the year has started well for ACM. Demand is at a good level and we make great progress regarding new business and initiation of new projects.

We want to thank all customers and partners for our cooperation on getting through 2022 and we look forward to the rest 2023!

Emil Engvall/MD