The most fertile ground for entrepreneurial talent in Italy, as we know, is that of small and medium businesses. Many of them are able to achieve very high performance levels. And 722 of them, to be precise, have been identified by Osservatorio PMI of Global Strategy, the strategic and financial consulting firm.
The companies were selected from a database in terms of the progress, in the last 5 years, of over 60,000 businesses with sales greater than 5 million euros, of which about 10,800 are in the area of medium capitalization, with sales from 20 to 250 million euros in manufacturing and services, and from 20 to 500 euros in the commercial sector.
“With 3.2 billion euros of profits reinvested in companies, and with 30,000 new jobs, the excellent businesses demonstrate that investments, innovation and internationalization are the right recipe,” says Stefano Nuzzo, director of Osservatorio PMI and an Equity Partner of Global Strategy.
The Observatory, now at its 11th edition, also focused on the macro-sector of furniture and decor, in which it identified 28 excellent companies from a database of about 1200. These firms are outstanding for growth rate, profitability and solidity, well surpassing the average in their sector. For example? From 2013 to 2017 they have reinvested 61% of profits, while boosting the overall number of employees by over 1000 units (+25%), with a gain in per capita salary of 14%. Sales and profit margins have grown, increasingly the supply of ready cash.
The value of production has reached 1736 million euros, for average annual growth of 12.5%, while operative income has increased on an average of 30.5%, for a total of 214 million euros. Since 2012 net assets have increased by 104%, as opposed to +85% for all the sectors covered by the database. Most of the excellent companies are in the Northeast (57.1%) and the Northwest (28.6%). Though fewer in number, the excellent medium-small businesses of the South and Islands are in second place for production growth (+12.5%).
