Increased costs related to the labour shortage hampered margin in Europe, according to the security multi-national company Securitas’s report for 2022.
Operating margin in North America exceeded 8 per cent for the first time, with strong improvement also excluding the newly-acquired Stanley Security. Integration with Stanley is ‘proceeding very well’, said Magnus Ahlqvist, Securitas President and CEO, pictured.
He said: “In Europe and Ibero-America, the operating margins improved on a full-year basis, but were flat in the quarter. Business conditions in Europe remain challenging as a result of the labour shortage.
“The Group’s operating margin continues to improve by realising benefits from our transformation programs and execution of the value creation plan from the acquired STANLEY Security business, as well as from pursuing active management of lower profitability contracts. We continue with disciplined pricing in the guarding business and have continued to protect a positive price and wage balance in a high inflationary environment.”
On those costs in Europe, the report for the last quarter noted higher costs for subcontracting and ‘reduced capacity to take on higher-margin extra sales’.
For the last quarter of 2022, the Security Services Europe arm of the company had sales growth of 11 per cent (including the high inflation in Turkey), ‘driven by strong price increases and good growth within technology and solutions’ according to the report, a figure not as much as Latin America (which includes the high inflation of Argentina) but better than North America. Excluding Stanley, real sales growth for that final quarter was 15 per cent.
Securitas customers include LinkedIn.
