25th Feb 2014 11:05
LONDON (Alliance News) - Specialty chemical company Elementis PLC Tuesday reported higher profits and revenues for 2013, driven by strong growth in its specialty products division.
Elementis reported a pretax profit for the year of USD134.3 million, after booking USD1.7 million in exceptional costs, compared with GBP133.4 million in pretax profits in 2012. It said its profit was lifted by a 2.6% increase in revenues, and as a whole, pricing and margins both remained "relatively stable" during the year.
The group raised its total dividends for the year by 11% to 13.93 cent per share, having paid a special dividend of 5.86 cents per share during the year. Group earnings per share increased 6% to 23.0 cents per share.
Elementis said the 2.6% increase in revenues to USD776.8 million, up from USD757.0 million a year earlier, was driven by strong growth in its specialty products division, which provides additives to the personal care and oilfield drilling markets.
It said its specialty products division was helped by exposure to high growth emerging markets, new product launches, market share gains and two strategic acquisitions, while chromium sales were lower, hit by a scheduled maintenance shutdown.
Chief Executive Officer David Dutro said 2013 was boosted by organic and acquisition growth, and given the group's strong product portfolio and healthy new product pipeline, it remains confident in delivering profitable growth across a broad range of economic scenarios.
"We invested in new manufacturing facilities, acquired Hi-Mar in the US, and made our first special dividend payment in the year. Despite this the group still managed to increase its net cash balance at the end of the year by USD10.1 million to USD54.1 million. Consequently, we are continuing with our dividend policy of paying approximately one third of earnings each year as the combined interim and final dividend, plus a special dividend of up to 50% of the year-end net cash balance," said Dutro.
Elementis shares were trading 1.3% lower at 272.60 pence per share Tuesday morning.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; [email protected]; @rharrisdoughty
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