8th Mar 2019 08:59
LONDON (Alliance News) - Cold storage warehousing and logistics firm Norish PLC hiked its 2018 dividend Friday after profit rose strongly on the back of lower costs, with further "strong" profit growth expected in 2019.
In 2018, pretax profit widened 12% to GBP1.9 million despite revenue falling 12% to GBP36.8 million from GBP42.0 million the year before.
Profit performance was helped by costs falling faster than revenue as well as the non-recurrence of a deferred consideration payment.
Cost of sales sank 14% to GBP33.9 million from GBP39.2 million, boosting gross profit to GBP2.9 million from GBP2.8 million. Administrative costs also reduced 4.3% to GBP851,000 from GBP889,000 the year before.
A GBP100,000 deferred consideration in 2017 related to its GBP8.3 million acquisition of Townview Foods Ltd announced in 2012 was also not repeated in 2018.
Norish proposed a 1.80 euro cent dividend for 2018, up 9.1% from 1.65 cents the year prior.
"We anticipate another year of strong profit growth for the group in 2019," Chair Ted O'Neill said.
"In our cold store division, the year has got off to a strong start in the first two months of the year," O'Neill added.
"Management continues to focus on maximising both sales mix and pricing, in a market that is currently more favorable to cold storage businesses, than it has been at any time in the most recent past. Focus on underlying cost improvement will continue."
"Despite the current volatility in its underlying markets, our protein sourcing division is well placed to deliver in line with expectation on the back of its low risk operating model," O'Neill continued.
"Our dairy farming division is now performing strongly."
Shares in Norish were 2.3% higher at 66.50 pence on Friday.
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