Håkan Lagerberg, chief executive of Swedencare, has become the biggest investor in Polygiene, the Swedish odor control company, with a stake of 7 percent. He and two other smaller investors have acquired shares in the company, which is still aiming for annual growth of between 20 and 30 percent in spite of a couple of problems that affected its results for the first quarter of this year.
Lagerberg, who has extensive experience in international sales, marketing and negotiations, has also become a member of Polygiene board of directors along with Ebba Fåhraeus, described as an analytical and proactive business developer with international experience also in marketing. They were both elected at the company's recent annual meeting, where shareholders authorized Polygiene's chief executive, Ulrika Björk, and the board to raise the equity by 10 percent to obtain new working capital, to help carry out acquisitions and to facilitate alliances with new industrial partners, if necessary.
Björk tells us that the company's liquidity is good, but she indicated that other potential investors and partners have shown interest in Polygiene, which recently launched a new, patented Odor Crunch technology for apparel that is meant to save water (see The Compass Vol. 12 N° 5+6 of March 31). The technology was shown at the Ispo Munich fair earlier this year. It will be presented again at the Outdoor Retailer show in Denver next month and at Ispo Shanghai in early July.
Meanwhile, Polygiene has further strengthened its international organization with the appointment of two new technical directors to help develop its sales in Asia and the Americas. Vishal Bhandari, based in India, will serve as technical director for South Asia. He previously worked as South Asia area manager for Sciessent, an American supplier of antimicrobial, anti-odor and water repellent products, responsible for technical support, sales and marketing.
Polygiene has already been active for many years in the Asian market, particularly in China. It established a subsidiary in Hong Kong at the end of last year, and it is now in the process of recruiting a commercial director for China, based in Shanghai, while adding a second agent for that market.
Another new technical director based in Chile, Henry Krause, will cover Central and South America as well as the U.S. He also worked for Sciessent and other companies in the areas of performance chemicals and textiles such as Nanotex.
Polygiene is investigating the reasons for its recent loss of some important accounts in the U.S., which led the company to post a lower-than-expected increase in revenues of only 7.9 percent in the first quarter, despite a sales increase of 40 percent in the first two months of the year. One factor was a delay in orders from a home textile company, which will show up in the second quarter. In the end, sales reached a level of 16.7 million Swedish kronor (€1.6m-$1.7m) and about 63 percent of them came from the sports and outdoor sector, where Polygiene has won a new apparel client, Callaway Golf.
On the other hand, the company's bottom line improved. The gross margin increased by 1.1 percentage points to 67.7 percent during the period. The quarterly operating loss was nearly halved, resulting in a negative operating margin of 6.6 percent. The net loss was cut in half, too, declining to SEK 883,000 (€82,597.8-$92,404.8) from SEK 1.7 million.
As previously reported, Polygiene turned around last year under the management of Björk, who hired new managers to boost sales and operations. She had formerly served as chief financial officer. Her successor in that post, Kristian Populin, has just left the company by mutual agreement. Björk will take over his responsibilities pending the recruitment of a new CFO.
