27th Jul 2016 06:51
LONDON (Alliance News) - Irish corrugated packaging company Smurfit Kappa Group PLC on Wednesday reported significant growth in pretax profit in the first half of 2016 on improved margins and good organic volume growth.
Dublin-based Smurfit, which recently joined the FTSE 250 after moving its primary listing to London, said pretax profit in the half-year to the end of June was EUR312.0 million, up 28% from the EUR243.0 million posted a year earlier.
Price rises initiated by the group pushed its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation margin up to 14.6% from 13.8% a year before. This lifted profit growth well beyond the 1.0% growth in revenue in the half to EUR4.05 billion from EUR4.0 billion.
Corrugated packaging volume growth in the half was 5.0%.
Smurfit said it will pay an interim dividend of 22.00 euro cents per share, up 10% year-on-year.
"Against a backdrop of higher than expected input costs, more pronounced currency volatility and a greater degree of macroeconomic risk, we expect to have a good year with earnings growth for 2016," said Chief Executive Tony Smurfit.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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