Our 2015 results show a year of great progress in financial growth helped by our strategic acquisitions. We have some great potential business in the pipeline and we are confident that we will be securing a number of exciting new projects shortly.

The company’s robust growth resulted in a turnover of €378m in 2015, which is a notable increase of 14% from 2014. Our earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were €44m, and that too was a satisfactory 16% increase over the previous year.

RINA’s strategy of reorganisation and growth into new markets across the business has worked really well. We successfully improved overall productivity and results in all four areas of our business, energy, marine, business assurance, transport and infrastructure. All this was achieved despite a downturn due to low oil prices.

RINA’s resilient energy business increased its returns and turnover despite being directly impacted by the market environment. Our carefully focused strategic investment opened up new opportunities for the company, which in turn helped us expand our service offering and client portfolio and open up new markets. Overcoming the effect of the low oil price truly validated RINA’s worldwide strategy of investing in high quality, value added services in order to develop new and long lasting relationships with our stakeholders.

RINA’s marine activity increased throughout 2015, resulting in improved turnover and returns. This growth was largely supported by a focus on the ever-growing cruise and ro-pax markets, which proved a successful strategy in light of the crises in dry bulk, container and offshore shipping. 2016 sees a bright future for this sector with a strong marine cruise and ro-pax order book secured this year.

RINA has long been recognised by cruise industry stakeholders as a crucial market player worldwide, we are proud to have led some of the most innovative projects internationally last year in this sector. RINA was chosen for classifying the first LNG cruise ships for Meyer Werft and under its REFRESH project refitted existing ships with green technologies by using dynamic energy modelling.

RINA’s consulting engineering services, under the D’Appolonia brand, offer a broad portfolio of services worldwide especially to energy based industries. We have a particular expertise in predicting market needs and the application of customised innovative technology transfer solutions. D’Appolonia’s innovative projects throughout the year strengthened our strong position as a strategic partner across all four of our business areas. In one of the most creative solutions bought to market, we applied an existing technology to produce a unique solution for the aerospace, defence and shipping sectors: Fly-Bag and XXL Refresh (Waterbag). CSM, an industrial leader in material innovation was acquired by D’Appolonia in 2014. Through this company we recently made a breakthrough in additive manufacturing technology by developing a multi-compatible 3D printer powder. The successful integration of this company was demonstrated by a growth of 58% in new clients from 2014.

In 2015, we acquired QIC, a leading testing, inspection and certification company serving major and independent operators and manufacturers in the energy industry. This acquisition has enhanced RINA’s offering of marine and energy services in America and, after an extremely successful integration, is already actively contributing towards energy finance targets.

Ever-changing economic markets mean that swift reactions to geopolitical changes are key to our success and this is some in which RINA excel. Trade links with Iran remain important for RINA and for Italy in particular. With sanctions lifted in Iran and the approval of ships bearing the Italian flag given, we immediately began discussing a partnership with the Asian Classification society.

Internally we are striving to improve our processes with the implementation of our Enterprise Risk Management approach (ERM), HSE audit and internal RiNew! IT Group Platform, which will provide a greater level of oversight and control. As part of our ERM approach, our board of directors appointed a Chief Risk Officer to develop the ERM framework and set up a corporate Risk Management and Audit Committee. The aim of the committee is to help ensure the board of directors and myself, as the CEO, make strategic decisions concerning RINA’s corporate risk management and control system. As well as growing organically throughout the year, we are pleased to report that two specialist acquisitions made in 2015 enhanced RINA’s global competencies expertise: SC Sembenelli Consulting in major civil engineering projects and SeaTech in the marine offshore oil and gas sector. Consolidation of our high quality services and innovative technologies will position RINA as a market leader in all four business areas, and secure exciting new contracts in 2016.

We are fortunate that RINA is underpinned by solid capital footing thanks to two new shareholders that invested in the company during 2014, RINA continues to strengthen its financial position as we want to facilitate new acquisitions that will help grow our competences and geographical market reach.

As the CEO and Chairman, a significant part of my role is to ensure that we have the right competences internally to meet the needs of our customers, to provide support to my teams so they continue to win valuable projects and to broaden the services offered by the Group.

Throughout the year my focus has been on continuing to develop and adapt RINA’s strategy to give the very best value to our shareholders, by measuring progress and performance against our pre-set goals. A key part of this process is maintaining a robust management team who are able to deliver results and support new developments in their stride. The flexibility in our management allows us to continue to open new doors within our chosen markets.

RINA are on a strong growth path. That growth was achieved, not only through organic growth of approximately 12%, but also through acquisition. We are actively searching for companies that will strengthen our service and geographic portfolio. We believe that the company can double in size over the next two years while maintaining or improving on an EBITDA of 12%.

Ugo Salerno

CHAIRMAN & CEO, RINA