4th Mar 2021 11:02
(Alliance News) - Synthomer PLC on Thursday announced a bolstered annual payout off of a rise in profit and record volumes, with 2021 expected to be another stellar year.
Shares in the FTSE 250-listed chemicals firm sunk 5.1% to 452.20 pence each in London on Thursday morning.
For 2020, Synthomer's underlying pretax profit rose 38% to GBP160.0 million, from GBP116.2 million the year prior.
The rise in profit was off of an increased revenue, up 12% to GBP1.64 billion from GBP1.46 billion.
Chair Caroline Johnstone said: "Throughout 2020, all our sites continued to produce without any significant interruption and we delivered record volumes to our customers. Alongside this, the business successfully completed and integrated the largest acquisition in its history, largely on a remote basis. Our business model has proven resilient in the toughest of circumstances."
Synthomer declared a final dividend of 8.6 pence per share versus nothing the in 2019. This brings the annual total payout to 11.6 pence, almost trebled from 4.0 pence.
Going forward, Johnstone said: "As we look to the future, the business is in a strong position. Whilst the Group will continue to adapt its operations in response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, at this stage we expect no meaningful disruption. The board is confident that the benefits of the Omnova acquisition, recent investment in new capacity, further efficiency measures and a proven strategy will underpin future growth. The current performance of our Performance Elastomers business, driven by exceptional demand for nitrile latex as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, may drive particularly strong one-off profitability in 2021, but we expect this to return to more normal levels as we move into 2022."
New York Stock Exchange-listed Omnova Solutions Inc is a specialty chemicals firm which was acquired for USD824 million by Synthomer. The acquisition was first announced in 2019 and was completed in April last year.
By Greg Roxburgh; [email protected]
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