11th Dec 2023 11:29
(Alliance News) - Coral Products PLC on Monday said that it remains on track to meet full-year targets, despite seeing both profit and revenue decline in the first half.
For the six months to October 31, the Manchester, England-based plastic products producer reported pretax profit of GBP836,000, down 6.6% from GBP894,000 a year prior.
Revenue fell 2.3% to GBP17.2 million from GBP17.6 million.
Coral attributed this to its pull back from lower margin business lines, but explained that the impact of this decision was balanced against organic growth and "full contributions" from the Manplas and Ecodeck businesses.
Coral also declared a dividend of 0.50 pence, unchanged from the previous year.
Looking ahead, the firm said it is "well positioned" to meet annual targets despite a "challenging" market environment.
Coral didn't specify what these targets were, but noted that both the recent and planned instalment of machinery is expected to drive growth in the "near to medium term".
"These results are pleasing as they show our ability to successfully bed down the four acquisitions we made in 2022, which doubled the size of our business, as well as weed out lower margin business lines," said Executive Chair Joe Grimmond.
He added: "Key to future growth is the investment we have made and continue to make in new machinery positioning us to win new contracts and expand upon existing relationships. Overall markets are challenging currently, nevertheless, we are confident the business remains well placed."
Grimmond will move from his role as executive chair to non-executive chair in the new year, when Lance Burn takes up his role as chief executive officer from January 2.
Burn joins from IG Design Group PLC, where he has been an executive board director since 2012.
Coral Products shares were trading 2.2% lower at 13.21 pence each in London on Monday morning.
By Holly Beveridge, Alliance News reporter
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