8 million Euro turnover in the sports field industry for Italian compounder So.F.Ter., thanks to the Forgrin HT, the elastomer granule for blocking up sports fields made of synthetic turf.

The company, after the coming into force of the LND (National Amateurs League) standard defining the realisation of synthetic-turf soccer pitches, is the first in the world to receive type-approval for its product. Thanks to this accolade, which had already been preceded by FIFA international certification, Forgrin HT So.F.Ter. will be used by 2008 on the soccer pitches of the EEC market, Japan and South America.

Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavia, Greece and Spain have already choised Forgrin HT: in the last few months, this product has already earned the company nearly 2 million Euro, while the other 6 will be arriving at the end of the summer season. The very last supply of Forgrin HT, installed in early-June, worth 130,000 Euro, went to Trentino Alto Adige at Campo Tures (BZ): this sports facility, designed to host the Italian A and B league teams at summer camp, is the first in Italy to be made with material type approved according to the new LND standard.

The Forlì company counts on closing 2008 with further growth. Says president Italo Carfagnini: “The goals we have set ourselves are most definitely within our reach: confirmation comes from the first quarter, which shows a 10% increase over the first three months of 2007”. The 2007 overall turnover 2007 was over 90 million Euro, (+11%) consolidated Ebitda amounted to 9.2 million (+32%); the tonnes of compounds made in 2006 totalled 50,020 and after one year touched almost 57,000 tonnes (+13%). If this growth trend is confirmed, the company will close this year with a turnover of more than 100 million Euro.

Overall performance figures make Italo Carfagnini rightly optimistic: “The latest results encourage us to continue along the path we have undertaken, made up above all of heavy investments in innovation and technologies: 16 million in the last three years. We are aware of having achieved good results, considering the statistics of today’s global market and the hardly-adequate support so far of the Italian State in favour of enterprises. Our strength lies in the defence of our workforce and know-how: for the past 28 years, we have always reinvested 100% of our profits into the firm”.

So.F.Ter. has its headquarters in a highly modern building located in the industrial area of Villa Selva, Forlì, which cost over 25 million Euro: a production facility extending over 105,000 sq m, 60,000 of which covered, into which all company departments moved in 2007. The company also has two production facilities in Latin America, one in Brazil and one in Mexico, opened in order to strengthen its positions abroad (currently, 38% of sales are made outside Italy, and 85% of these go to Europe – especially Benelux, Slovenia and Germany). The company employs a workforce of 185.