Semapa's Q1 profit surges to €513M on Secil cement unit sale

On March 23, Semapa completed the sale of its entire stake in Secil, the cement manufacturer, to Spain's Cementos Molins for just over a billion euros. The transaction landed like a financial reset button. When the dust settled and the first quarter of 2026 closed, Semapa reported a net profit of 513.3 million euros—more than thirteen times what it had earned in the same quarter a year before, when the figure stood at 39.6 million. The sale alone generated a provisional gain of 482 million euros, a windfall that would reshape the company's balance sheet in ways that rippled through every corner of its operations.

But the headline number masks a more complicated picture underneath. Strip away the one-time gain from the cement sale, and Semapa's actual operating profit for the quarter was 31 million euros—a decline from the prior year. The company's core business, Navigator, which produces paper and pulp, had stumbled. Revenue across the group fell 14.1 percent to 478.4 million euros, with Navigator itself down nearly a fifth due to falling prices and operational disruptions caused by severe weather in Portugal. EBITDA, the measure of operational cash generation, dropped 40.7 percent to 70.9 million euros. Navigator accounted for most of that decline, falling 43.9 percent.

What made the quarter significant, though, was not the profit spike but what Semapa did with the proceeds. The company had been carrying 1.006 billion euros in net debt at the end of 2025. The Secil sale inverted that position entirely. By the end of March, Semapa had swung to a net cash position of 36.7 million euros—or 101 million euros when accounting for lease obligations under international accounting standards. The group's cash reserves climbed to 1.22 billion euros. For a company that had been managing debt, this was liberation. It meant capital to invest, room to maneuver, and the ability to reshape its portfolio without the weight of borrowed money.

Semapa's leadership framed the sale as strategic portfolio management, a deliberate choice to exit cement and concentrate on areas with better growth prospects. The company had already begun that pivot. Navigator, despite its current struggles, had been diversifying away from pure paper production. Tissue and packaging operations now represented roughly 40 percent of the division's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. That shift suggested the company was building resilience into its core business even as commodity prices fluctuated.

The company invested 102.9 million euros during the quarter, with 27.6 million flowing through Semapa Next, the group's venture arm. That unit had been placing bets on energy transition, industrial technology, logistics, and vertical software platforms. New positions included stakes in CarbonRe and Sybilion, alongside increased backing for Gropyus. Navigator itself spent 42.4 million on fixed assets, with more than half directed toward environmental and sustainability projects. The message was clear: the cash from the cement sale was not going to sit idle.

Navigator's management signaled that relief might be coming. The company anticipated price increases across paper, tissue, and packaging in the months ahead, supported by capacity reductions announced by competitors in Europe and the United States. The other business units—Imedexa, ETSA, and Triangle—were expected to recover gradually as new production lines came online. The integration of 2025 acquisitions, particularly Imedexa and Barna, was proceeding. What had been a quarter defined by a single transformative transaction was also a quarter of repositioning, of building the next iteration of Semapa with a cleaner balance sheet and a clearer sense of where growth would come from.