PURE.L Regulatory News (PURE)

PURECIRCLE LIMITED

TRADING UPDATE

PureCircle (LSE: PURE), the world's largest producer and marketer of high purity stevia ingredients, today provides a trading update in respect of the six month period from 1 July 2012 to 31 December 2012, being the first half of its Financial Year 2013 (1H FY13). The Company's interim results for 1H FY13 will be announced on Wednesday 13 March 2013.

Sales

Sales in 1H FY13 are expected to be $27.3m, an increase of 80% against 1H FY12 ($15.2m). $26m of the sales are expected to be high purity stevia sweeteners and natural flavors, a 120% improvement against 1H FY12.There was growth in sales across all high purity ingredients primarily driven by new innovations in our Stevia PureCircle proprietary portfolio of all-natural, no-calorie sweeteners and natural flavor systems, under the PureCircle Flavors range.  By region, EMEA, Latin America, Asia Pacific and USA all recorded sales growth.

Sales volumes: In 1H FY13 total volumes of high purity stevia sweeteners and natural flavors are expected to increase by 135% against 1H FY12. Volume increases were led by sales of new proprietary ingredients introduced over the past twenty-four months.

EBITDA

The benefits of the increase in sales are expected to flow through the Profit and Loss account. Overall 1H FY13 EBITDA is expected to show an 80% improvement against 1H FY12 (EBITDA loss of $8.9m).

Cash, net debt and funding headroom

The Group ended 1H FY13 with gross cash of $45m, net debt of $67m and cash and facility headroom of $70m. The Group is sufficiently funded for its current expansion plans.

Commenting on the 1H FY13 trading, the Group CEO Magomet Malsagov said:  Our strategy of having a fully controlled, vertically integrated supply chain from leaf to finished products, of successfully developing and introducing to the market new proprietary natural sweeteners and flavors, of investing in applications and formulations as well as in global marketing and customer service capabilities, is beginning to yield results as can be seen by our performance in the first half of this fiscal year. New long term supply and joint development agreements with major global food and beverage (F&B) companies have been signed adding to our already strong portfolio of Global Key Accounts. Across the world, large F&B brands began to adopt our ingredients, most notably carbonated soft drinks (CSD's) including the important Cola category. We generate revenues from a wide range of natural sweeteners and flavors and we service globally hundreds of customers directly and through our business partners.

Our production capacity and customer service infrastructure are designed to deliver even greater volumes and revenues. As we continue to build on recent momentum, our guidance for sustained higher levels of market demand remains mid to long-term based.