StockMarketWire.com
Croda International - a world leader in speciality chemical ingredients - posts record reported sales and pre-tax profit for the year to the end of December.
It said this reflected underlying sales growth in all four sectors and from all regional geographies.
Sales for the year increased to GBP1,081.7m, representing constant currency growth of 4.2% over 2014 and capping six successive quarters of underlying sales growth. The improvement in adjusted pre-tax profit was even stronger, up 8.8% in constant currency terms. Adjusted pre-tax profit was GBP254.7m (2014: GBP235.4m) and IFRS pre-tax profit was �252.3m (2014: �229.4m).
The full year dividend increased by 5.3% to 69.0p, in addition to a 100p per share special dividend.
Chief executive Steve Foots said: "2015 has been a year of strong progress for Croda. A relentless focus on innovation, improved proximity to our customers and investment in fast growth markets has delivered record reported sales and pre-tax profit, together with a special dividend to shareholders. Looking ahead, whilst we expect market conditions to remain challenging, our strong innovation pipeline and the benefits of our customer-led investment in capacity mean that we are confident of delivering continued progress in 2016."