LONDON (Alliance News) - British Polythene Industries PLC Monday reported an increase in profit and revenue for the full year, despite continuation of volatile raw material costs and what it called an "uncertain economic environment".
The polythene film business posted pretax profit of GBP18.5 million for 2013, up from GBP17.0 million in 2012, as revenue rose to GBP506.5 million from GBP478.7 million a year earlier, which it attributed to a good year from its European businesses and an improvements in results from its UK and US arms.
"This performance was in spite of poor results from our UK Consumer operations, where margins were under pressure from rising raw material costs and where we made a GBP1 million provision for restructuring costs, after the non-renewal of a major contract at the end of the year," it added.
British Polythene said total volumes increased 1.4% to 271,000 tonnes from 262,000.
During the period, the company bought Cheshire-based plastics manufacturer Flexfilm Ltd for GBP5.2 million. Flexfilm has been added to the company's films operations in the UK, where it will continue to supply films to a number of converters and end-users in the UK, mainly in the retail food sector.
Looking ahead, the firm said it will target growth in the agriculture sector where its "range of agricultural stretch-films is gaining favour in many geographic areas and, barring exceptionally poor growing conditions, we expect that our volumes will be ahead of 2013".
The company proposed a final dividend of 10.0 pence, up from 9.0 pence, making a total dividend of 14.5 pence from 13.2 pence in 2012.
The stock was trading at 664.50 pence Monday morning, down 1.50 pence or 0.2%.
By Anthony Tshibangu; anthonytshibangu@alliancenews.com; @AnthonyAllNews
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