— By Plasteurope.com staff — 

CEO Antoine Doutriaux has described the performance of plastics processor S.A. Plastiques du Val de Loire (Plastivaloire, Langeais, France; www.groupe-plastivaloire.com) in the first half of the 2025/2026 financial year (ending 30 September) as “very satisfactory”.

In particular, order intake in the automotive division rose enormously in the first eight months of the financial year: compared with the previous year, the company almost doubled its figure to EUR 532 mn – driven by both European and American customers.

At the same time, the French supplier is working to expand its business with Chinese car manufacturers who assemble vehicles in Europe.

A downside is the significantly smaller industrial segment, where order intake has suffered greatly since 2024 due to changes in air-conditioning technology. Furthermore, some customer programmes have been terminated due to fierce competition from low-wage countries. To compensate, Plastivaloire is working to secure orders from the defence sector for its industrial division.

Related: Restructuring costs push automotive supplier Plastivaloire into red

According to CFO Jean-Marc André, the automotive supplier had not yet felt any impact in the first half of the year from the rise in polymer prices that has been ongoing since March. He said during a press briefing that agreements were in place with the majority of customers to cushion the impact of raw material prices driven by higher oil prices.

However, he does expect the war in Iran to have consequences for the second half of the financial year. This is one of the reasons why the forecast for the full-year EBITDA margin has been slightly reduced as a precautionary measure – from around 9% previously to between 8.5% and 9% now. Total turnover is still expected to be around EUR 690 mn.

In detail, EBITDA for the first six months is put at EUR 31.7 mn (same period last year: EUR 29.9 mn). As a result, Plastivaloire returned to profitability: the loss of EUR 3.1 mn recorded a year ago has now been replaced by a profit of EUR 2.8 mn. Meanwhile, revenue rose by 1.9% to EUR 352.7 mn.