PURE.L Regulatory News (PURE)

PURECIRCLE LIMITED

("PureCircle" or "the Company")

Trading Update and Board of Director Changes

PureCircle (LSE: PURE), the world's leading producer and marketer of high purity stevia ingredients, today provides a pre-close trading update for its financial year ended 30 June 2016 ("FY16") and announces changes in its Board of Directors. The Group will issue its audited results for FY16 on 15 September 2016.

FY16 Trading

Sales for FY16 are expected to be not less than $138 million an increase of $11 million (9%) on FY15. Sales grew in all regions. During FY16 our future sales pipeline again increased, underpinned by contributions from our extended portfolio of stevia innovation. But as we noted in April a number of planned customer launches have been delayed into FY17.

Margins are expected to have strengthened considerably in FY16 with EBITDA expected to be $37 million (FY15 $23 million), an increase of 60% and net profit expected to be $15 million (FY15 $4 million) an increase of 275%. The net profit is stated after charging $2m of costs associated with our main market listing in October 2015. Our margin improvement principally reflects the contribution from our expanded high purity stevia portfolio. In addition, there was some moderation in leaf costs and there was some contribution from favourable foreign exchange, although less so than in the first half of the year.

The Group is expected to end FY16 with net debt of $51 million (FY15 $46 million) and headroom of 78 million (FY15 88 million). The Group was operating cash flow positive in FY16, before production capacity expansion.

The shipments detained by the CBP in May 2016 referred to in our 2 June 2016 statement have now been released by the CBP for import into the United States.

The Company continues to work actively with the CBP to effect a full resolution of the issue for further shipments. The Company will update the Market with relevant news on this as and when appropriate progress is made.

Commenting on the Pre-close trading update the CEO Magomet Malsagov said "During FY16 the market for PureCircle Stevia has continued to develop strongly with favourable regulatory developments and continued roll-out of ever larger Food and Beverage (F&B) brands using stevia. Significant milestones in the year include the approval of high purity stevia in India and Brazil, Rebaudioside M approval in Europe and the launch of our Zeta family of new ingredients, closing the taste gap for low or no calorie applications and opening up new F&B categories adoption of stevia. These developments underpin our confidence in the long term prospects for our business and support the investments we are making to increase production capacity and further product innovation.

Our business model is robust so that we are confident that as sales increase we will report improved profitability. But as stated in prior reports, the trajectory of our sales growth will be uneven and is dependent on the pace and extent of customers' product launches hence we caution that there will be continued volatility in the development of our business."

Board Changes

Effective today 6 July 2016, Rakesh Sinha is appointed Chief Financial Officer and an Executive Director of PureCircle Limited. In this role Rakesh takes over from William Mitchell who today retires from the Board after eight years' service. Rakesh will be based in our Malaysia corporate office.

Commenting on the Board changes the Chairman Paul Selway-Swift said "As noted when he joined the business in April, we are delighted to have secured the services of someone of the calibre of Rakesh to help take the business forward through the next stages of its development. On behalf of the Board we would like to express our appreciation to William for his significant contributions across the last 8 years and we wish him well in his retirement."

NOTES TO EDITORS

PureCircle Limited is the world's leading producer of high-purity stevia ingredients for the global food and beverage industry. Its mission is to encourage healthier diets around the world through the supply of natural ingredients to the global food and beverage industry. Its vision is to lead the global expansion of stevia as the next mass volume, natural-origin sweetener. PureCircle has offices around the world with the global headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Business was founded in 2002. PureCircle's shares are listed on the main market of London Stock Exchange and trades under the ticker symbol PURE. For more information, visit: www.purecircle.com.