LONDON (Alliance News) - Plastic packaging products company RPC Group PLC on Thursday reported higher pretax profit and much stronger revenue in its recent financial year, on the back of acquisitions, while improving its annual dividend.
The FTSE 250-listed firm said pretax profit for the year to the end of March was GBP75.6 million, up from GBP67.1 million a year earlier, as revenue grew 34% to GBP1.64 billion from GBP1.22 billion.
RPC said the growth in revenue was driven primarily by recent acquisitions the group made, including Icelandic rigid plastic packaging and components company Promens. Like-for-like sales growth excluding the acquisitions came in at 4.0%.
The group said the integration of Promens and of Global Closure Systems, the French plastic closures and dispensing systems specialist it bought in December for EUR650.0 million, remain on track, and it now expects to generate annual cost synergies from the deals of EUR80.0 million a year, up EUR15.0 million on previous estimates.
RPC will pay a final dividend of 12.3 pence, taking its total payout to 17.1p, up 20% from the 14.3p paid a year earlier.
"This has been another successful year with a strong business performance founded upon good underlying organic growth," said Chief Executive Pim Vervaat.
By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance
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