SEPI Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales

• In 2013, CETARSA will process a volume of 32,500 Tons of tobacco, the highest figure since its incorporation
• The Company envisages an average employment level of 16% of its seasonal permanent workforce for this year

The raw-tobacco company Compañía Española de Tabaco en Rama (CETARSA) has consolidated itself during the 2012 harvest as the company around which revolves the industry. During the 2012 harvest, the tobacco company has increased by 20% its purchasing levels thanks to the agreements reached with the manufacturing companies, which will allow it to maintain in the next harvests these high purchasing levels as the best sustainability guarantee for the tobacco farming industry.

During this period, CETARSA has also reached a number of agreements with other processing companies which purchase tobacco in Spain for processing, in a maquila regime, of practically all its tobacco. These alliances will have the result that the Company’s factories will process from now on practically all the tobacco which is grown in Spain.

Production levels

During this year 2013, CETARSA will process about 32,500 Tons of tobacco, the highest figure since its incorporation, with a 25% increase in comparison with its average production levels during the last years.
These figures have meant that CETARSA increases during 2012 the average employment level of its seasonal permanent workforce by 4.5%, and that it envisages a new increase of the average level of 16% during 2013. Besides, the support which the Company gives to the growers through payments in advance for their harvest has allowed the farmers to reduce their financial costs which, in other context, would be forced to resort to the markets for financing, with the problems which that would mean currently.
On the other hand, during the last year, the Company’s managers have achieved a number of landmarks with the three biggest world operators in the cigarette’s market. Among others:

• an agreement with the Imperial Tobacco group which in the 2012 harvest increased its purchases of Virginia tobacco (the most important variety) in almost 50%;
• Philip Morris’ commitment (the first tobacco manufacturing company at world level) to significantly increase during the next harvests its Spanish tobacco purchases, a commitment which will apply soon also to the other big operator, Japan Tobacco International;
• the conclusion of purchase contracts with the farmers for next harvest with a 4% average price increase, which will provide more stability to tobacco growers in Spain; and finally,
• the intensification of the penetration in the export markets, corresponding more than 80% of last year’s total tobacco sales income to exports.

For the next few years, CETARSA sees with optimism the fulfillment of its main goals, such as its key contribution to maintaining the income of the industry as a whole and of the employment level generated with tobacco cultivation and raw processing, the consolidation of the improvement of the average employment levels of its seasonal permanent workforce, the guarantee of its financial sustainability in the medium-level and its significant collaboration for organizing the industry so that it can defend its common interests. However, there are some factors which might entail some risks for the industry and, as a result, for the Company, such as the fall in consumption and the reduction in the Common Agricultural Policy’s aids.

CETARSA

CETARSA, a company in which SEPI has a 80% shareholding participation, is active in the raw-tobacco purchase, processing and commercialization in the domestic and in the international markets, and it employs a total of 450 persons.

The tobacco varieties on which CETARSA focus its processing activities are; Virginia, which represents 82.7% of the total entries into the threshing line at CETARSA’s facilities, and Burley with the remaining 17.3%. Further, the Company works with the Havana variety, whose processing process does not require so much threshing, but a previous fermentation process.

CETARSA’s significance is geographically focused on the North of the province of Cáceres – on which is grown 95% of the domestic tobacco production, which turns this Company into a fundamental tool for the raw-tobacco industry and for the economy as a whole, both in the production area and as a result, for all the region of Extremadura.

CETARSA amounts 90% of the market share in Spain of tobacco purchases with all Growers’ Associations which operate in this industry. The Company is at the head of the first-processing companies in Europe. Its main customers represent more than 80% of the cigarette market in Spain, and they hold a very significant position in the European and world markets as a whole. Equally, the Company plays an important role as the glue of the industry in the promotion and defense of its common interests, such as the development of the new CAP and its effects on the industry and the Common Directive on tobacco.

Thanks to its customers, the Company maintains a continuous effort regarding the quality and competitiveness of its tobacco products, thus increasing during this year 2013 its investment levels for being capable of meeting its customers’ requirements.

GRUPO SEPI

CETARSA belongs to Grupo SEPI, a corporate holding which includes a total of 18 state-owned companies in which it has direct, majority shareholding participations, with a workforce 80,000 professionals; it also includes the Spanish state-owned television and radio corporation, Corporación Radiotelevisión Española, which is attached to SEPI, and one public foundation. Equally, SEPI has direct minority shareholdings in a further seven companies, and indirect shareholdings in more than one hundred companies