Report of the Supervisory Board 2022
The year 2022 has, from a financial point of view, been very successful for ROTO. It showed solid growth in the group’s turnover and profitability, despite a challenging and uncertain geopolitical and economic outlook. 2022 was Prestia’s first full year of integration. We are pleased to see that the integration is progressing on many fronts. All business units have contributed positively to the result, but the sharply risen energy costs and the highly inflationary economic environment have put pressure on margins. Also, the large volatility of commodity prices, in particular steel and zinc, contributed positively this year. At the same time, this volatility underlines the need for careful management of stocks of raw materials, as volatility is a two-way street that also involves significant downward risks.
As announced in our previous report, the Supervisory Board was further extended by two new board members. In 2022, Petra van Saaze joined the Supervisory Board with a focus on sales, marketing and branding. Also, to underline the strong commitment to ROTO of the De Boer family, Arnaud de Boer joined the Supervisory Board. In line with our ambition, we have now achieved an equal distribution of men and women, which also perfectly fits with our goals for the CSRD and other requirements.
Meetings and topics
In 2022, the Supervisory Board met nine times, including a 2-day visit to Prestia with the complete new Supervisory Board which served as an excellent opportunity for alignment and team development, at the meetings the management of Roto B.V. was also present. These meetings, always starting with Safety First, discussed the Business Unit's quarterly reports, operations, sustainability, investment plans and innovation, as well as the audit report on ICT and administrative organisation and the planning and results of the audit procedures.
Special topics for discussion were strategy, entrepreneurship, value creation, risk management, the results of the ROTO PeopleSurvey, HR policy and the importance of strengthening leadership and control in the various Business Units and taking steps towards ESG and CSRD reporting.
A value-driven approach to business leads to broad value creation
The current challenging and often unpredictable geopolitical situation only emphasises the need for a solid strategy and risk management to ensure future success. As such, it is crucial to build on our ROTO Strategy House and our values as well as reporting and steering towards broad value creation along the lines of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.