Focus on organic growth of regulated businesses, with strong commitment to operational and organisational efficiency and improving financial structure, with significant results as early as in 2012-2013.

• EBITDA 2010-2016: average annual growth rate +6.2%1

• Pre-tax ROIC of 13,1% by 2016

• Net debt/EBITDA ratio of 2.1x by 2016

• Total investment during period 2012-2016: 2.3 billion euros
  

Rome, 22 February 2012 – A meeting of the Board of Directors of Acea SpA, chaired by Giancarlo Cremonesi, has approved the Group’s Business Plan for the period 2012-2016.  

The Business Plan sets out strategic guidelines and targets for the next five years: organic growth across all areas of business, with particular emphasis on the Group’s regulated businesses that currently generate over 80% of consolidated EBITDA; a strong commitment to operational and organisational efficiency and to boosting service quality; consolidation of theGroup’s role as an efficient, locally focused operator, strongly committed to sustainability and the exploitation of growth opportunities.

The Group’s development will focus on five key strategic goals:

1) to strengthen our leadership position in the Italian water sector and our operational excellence in electricity distribution;
2) to implement projects already under way in the Environment segment and develop new initiatives;
3) to focus on energy efficiency and the development of new technologies (smart grids);
4) to create shareholder value by driving earnings growth and implementing a sustainable dividend policy in keeping with our strong ties to our local markets and our customers;
5) to improve the current level of debt, partly thanks to implementation of planned curbs on net working capital (receivables to be reduced by approximately 200 million euros over the period 2011-2016).