Azizia Panda wins Group MD Award. The Savola Group celebrated its record achievements during its recent annual conference under the theme “Focusing, delivering, and growing". It was inaugurated by Dr. Abdulraouf Mannaa, Group Managing Director, who declared it a great and remarkable day of celebrating the Group's historic achievements in 2012. Dr. Mannaa expressed his confidence in the support of more than 18,000 Savolans to drive the Group as it takes its next leap forward into a new phase of growth and development. Muwaffaq Mansour Jamal, CEO of Azizia Panda, said “our vision has always been to be the number one mass market retailer in the region led by our customers and our constant innovation to meet their needs." Reporting that Azizia Panda now has 146 stores in Saudi Arabia in 33 cities, Jamal said “in 2012 every single day we received one million people and our strategy for 2013 is to increase our presence by opening 15 more Panda supermarkets and 5 HyperPanda offering the best value at the lowest cost in order to keep us number one in public perception." Eng. Azhar Kenji, CEO, Savola Plastics Sector, said the company has six the company's factories in Jeddah, Riyadh, and Alexandria with a total of 250 production lines and a total annual production capacity of 200,000 metric tons, and in 2012, the factories produced 9 million preform, 5 million bottles which were supplied to 32 countries. Future plans include building another distribution network for Europe and entry into the East Africa market. Abderrahim Amaaraf, CEO of Savola Foods, highlighted the impressive growth of Savola's edible oils, sugar and pasta, noting Savola edible oils continue to dominate the industry regionally and is considered one of the global players. Abdulghani Abdullah, Vice President of Savola Human Resources, reiterated the Group's vision which is to make Savola the Employer of Choice Moreover, Mannaa said: “In 2012, The Savola Group achieved SR1.35 billion net operating profit, which is 12.5 percent higher compared to last year. Now, in 2013, we are ready for more challenges and more growth. First of all, we aim to achieve SR1.4 net operating profit in 2013 by continuing our organic growth from our core businesses. We also aim to grow the Group's Packaging Sector leveraging its potential and looking beyond the region. Finally we will continuously seek opportunities to further expand our investment portfolio especially in non-managed businesses." — SG
