BPI.L Regulatory News (BPI)

12 May 2005 12:22

British Polythene Industries PLC12 May 2005 12 May 2005 BRITISH POLYTHENE INDUSTRIES PLC AGM STATEMENT At today's Annual General Meeting of British Polythene Industries PLC, CameronMcLatchie, Chairman, made the following statement: "We indicated in our Preliminary Statement that rising raw material costs, andthe difficulty in passing these costs through to our customers in a timeousmanner, had been our major concern last year. This factor has been less of an issue this year, as sales prices are nowcatching up with raw material costs and as a consequence our margins haveimproved. Whilst we would prefer our order books to be better for certainproducts at this time of year, our early season sales of silage stretch wraphave been strong and augur well for a good year for this product. We have announced in the last few days that it is our intention to close twosmall factories in Ipswich and Redditch in the UK. The Ipswich factory producespackaging stretch wrap and various horticultural film products and its capacitywill be absorbed by efficiency improvements at our Widnes plant and otherlocations in the UK. The Redditch factory produces refuse sacks, which weremainly made from virgin high density polythene. The refuse sack marketcontinues to move towards sacks manufactured from recycled polythene and thischange has led us to transfer this work to our UK factories which operate largerecycling facilities. The remaining Redditch capacity will be transferred toour factory in China. In total, these two closures will result in net joblosses in the UK of around 80 and we will provide for total closure costs ofsome £1.3 million in our results for the first half. Despite absorbing these costs, we expect our operating performance for the firstsix months to be comfortably ahead of the same period last year." Cameron McLatchie Enquiries:Cameron McLatchie Chairman01475 501000 John Langlands Chief Executive01475 501000 Tim Spratt Financial Dynamics0207 831 3113 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange