Tate & Lyle has said it has performed solidly and in line with its expectations during its full-year financial period.
Ahead of publishing results next month, for the year ending 31 March 2013, the international ingredients firm said its speciality food ingredients divisions will achieve solid sales growth, with the rate of volume growth in the second half slightly ahead of what was achieved during H1.
Within the bulk ingredients business, Tate & Lyle revealed a good underlying performance from its sweeteners in both Europe and the US, which the firm said “is expected to more than offset the impact of the costs associated with handling higher levels of aflatoxin”, as well as challenging market conditions in US ethanol.
Graham Jones, analyst at Panmure Gordon, said: “We have trimmed our profit before tax forecast for 2013E from £331m to £327m, but raised our forecast for 2014E from £359m to £365m, due to the stronger US dollar. Net debt is flagged to be slightly higher than last, and higher than expected, due to US dollar strength versus sterling.”
Tate & Lyle explained that net debt will be higher than previously anticipated, due to the recent strengthening of the US dollar against sterling, and will be higher than the level reported at the end of 2012.
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