Fleury is expected to invest $ 300 million in 2013

The Fleury Group plans to invest $ 300 million in new laboratories and in expanding existing units, said yesterday the President of the network of diagnostic medicine, Omar Magid Hauache. Last year, the Fleury invested r $ 162 million.
"It's a much more robust investment. Most of these r $ 300 million will be directed toward the mark Fleury, who continues to grow double digits for many years, "said Hauache.
According to the Executive, the Fleury intends to build four large laboratories in São Paulo, with planned completion in 2014. The Group also plans to enlarge smaller units of other brands, said Hauache.
The laboratory network ended the fourth quarter of 2012 at a profit of $ 16.5 million, up 29.3% compared with a year earlier. Revenue advanced 13.8% over the same period, to $ 376,1 million.
"We invest a lot in organic growth in the previous year and we started to have the fruits of that growth. In addition, we will have the results from Labs d'Or, acquisition that we did a year ago, "said Hauache, commenting on the increase in the company's profit.
The Executive referred to the Rio Group integration of laboratories Labs D'or, bought at the end of 2010 for $ 1.1 billion.
In the fourth quarter, costs rose by 23%, to $ 288 million, impacting gross margin, which fell from 29.2% to 23.5%. But operating expenses decreased 40% to r $ 40.7 million. The indicator came to represent only 10.8% of net revenues, compared with the 20.4% in the fourth quarter of 2011.
With this, the Ebit (earnings before interest and taxes) advanced 17%, to R $ 56 million. The operating margin advanced 0.4 percentage point, to 14.9%.
The financial result also contributed to the rise in the last line of the balance sheet. The balance between spending on interest and exchange rate variations and gains from investments was negative at r $ 11 million, below the $ 17 million spent in the fourth quarter of 2011. In 2012 as a whole, Fleury's profit advanced 5.9%, to R $ 106,6 million. Revenue totaled $ 1.5 billion, up 33.4% compared to the previous year.