SITI B&T acquires majority shares of Ancora and Projecta Engineering

The Formigine-based group has increased its stake to 100% of both companies. The total value of the transactions amounts to 6.3 million euros.

SITI B&T Group has announced its acquisition of the minority stakes of Ancora (20%) and Projecta Engineering (48%), bringing its shareholdings in both group companies to 100%. The values of the transactions were 1.6 million euros for Ancora, a company specialising in tile finishing technologies, and 4.7 million euros for Projecta, a producer of digital decoration systems. Projecta also owns a 62.5% stake in Digital Design, a company devoted to design and graphic research services.

“Today we have consolidated our ownership of two highly successful companies that are cornerstones of our Group,” commented Fabio Tarozzi, Chairman and CEO of SITI B&T Group. “Thanks to the synergies established since 2014, the last year prior to the acquisition, Ancora has more than doubled its turnover while Projecta Engineering, which was practically a start-up when it was acquired in 2010, has become a major international player in the field of digital decoration technologies.”

These statements are confirmed by the figures. In 2017 Projecta Engineering posted revenues of 35.6 million euros (EBITDA of 3.7 million euros), while in 2018 Ancora generated estimated revenues of 36.9 million euros compared to the 32.4 million euros of 2017.

Both companies focus strongly on research and each made total annual investments of more than a million euros. Ancora owns 58 patents and has a team of 14 people working on R&D out of its total workforce of 79, while Projecta has 17 patents and a research team of 22 employees out of a total of 74. 

This has led to the development of world-renowned cutting-edge technologies. Ancora recently launched a number of innovative products including Polidry^®, the first dry honing line; Luxury^®, the complete and flexible large slab finishing system which performs honing, cutting, squaring and protective treatment application; and a fully-automated squaring line based on laser technology. All solutions are equipped with advanced systems for supervision and control of production efficiency.

Projecta Engineering has also launched a number of innovative solutions including the Full Digital Decoration line with eco-friendly water-based technology, the Industry 4.0 supervision unit and Innova^®, the series of digital printers for large sizes. An internal development centre devoted to decoration of non-ceramic surfaces (glass, wood, plastic, brick, concrete, etc.) was opened in 2018 and the first products were launched onto the market in January 2019.