Final accounts: Brandfactory 2020

Brandfactory has closed the 2020 books. The company leaves the reconstruction year as a tighter firm, with considerably lower costs and a positive operating margin.

The company posted sales of 614 million SEK and the operating result incl reconstruction effects landed at 38 million SEK for the group.

Grafkom has talked to Sverre Trygg, CFO of Brandfactory.

Trygg tells that Lazarus, the owner of Brandfactory since 2019, has made 10 million SEK available to enable important investments during the coming year.

Trygg has been a part of the team taking the company through reconstruction and he is now looking at a brighter future for the company.

“I entered the company in a phase of reconstruction which was a challenging time with an immense workload.”

The company is divided into three business units. One of them is Communication which primarily is the printing business and retail comm.  Branding consists of exterior/interior branding, sign, decor, concept development and digital signage. Within branding the projects are often bigger and longer lasting. The third business unit is logistics.

“Everything is connected at the same time as we need special competence in each unit. The idea is that the customer should be able to have a sole supplier within visual communication.”

From reconstruction to Corona

The company went through a very fast reconstruction period. Trygg explains that the speed of the process was vital for Brandfactory.

“You need to go through such a process quickly – for all parties involved.”

And even though the company went from one crisis directly into another, the company has been able to post a good result in 2020.

“During the first months of Corona we lost as much as 50 per cent of the turnover, but since September we have been profitable each month,” Trygg says.

2020 and onwards

Brandfactory will be reporting a positive operating profit in all companies for 2020. In addition, the company now has a better balance sheet and the bank loans have been reduced from 165 million SEK to 5 million SEK.

In 2020 Brandfactory had a turnover of approximately 600 million SEK. The Danish business was sold during the year which means Brandfactory will be a smaller company in 2021.

Brandfactory has today businesses in Sweden and Norway. Production sites are located in Stockholm, Linköping, Göteborg and Jordbro (logistics). The company has around 250 employees.