25th Feb 2016 07:42
LONDON (Alliance News) - South African paper and packaging group Mondi PLC on Thursday said its pretax profit rose 29% in 2015 thanks to strong and profitable trading across its operations, prompting a 24% hike to its dividend payout.
The FTSE 100-listed company said its pretax profit for the year to the end of December rose to GBP796.0 million from GBP619.0 million a year earlier, as revenue grew to GBP6.82 billion from GBP6.40 billion, a 7.0% rise. The group will pay a final dividend of 37.62 euro cents per share, taking its total dividend to 52.0 cents, up 24% year-on-year.
Mondi said all its business units performed well over the course of the year and said it intends to spend EUR450.0 million on internal projects in 2016, part of a push to increase the efficiency of its operations. In 2015, it bought EUR94.0 million worth of bolt-on companies, focused on boosting its consumer packaging exposure, while it also closed six operations and sold another four in order to cut costs and refine its product mix.
"2015 was an extremely successful year for Mondi. We made significant progress across a number of key areas and again delivered excellent results. Our focus continues to be on growing the packaging side of our business while at the same time investing appropriately in our uncoated fine paper operations," said Chief Executive David Hathorn.
On Thursday, Mondi added it has agreed a deal to sell its uncoated fine paper operations in Austria to a joint venture subsidiary, Mondi SCP. Mondi owns 51% of the SCP business, with the rest owned by Eco-Invest AS, and the unit owned its uncoated fine paper mill in Slovakia.
SCP will pay Mondi EUR30.0 million in cash to buy the operation.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
Copyright 2016 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
Mondi