Canadian-Irish plastics manufacturer IPL Plastics has posted a 5.4% decline in revenue in the second quarter of its financial year, to CAN$168.6 million (€150.6 million), due to negative foreign exchange translation as well as temporary trading delays in its Returnable Packaging Solutions division.
However, the company, which specialises in sustainable packaging solutions, said that its performance was boosted by the acquisition of Loomans Group, a Belgian plastics firm, as well as volume growth in its Consumer Packaging Solutions business in North America.
The group saw its gross profit rise by 22.1% in the period, while EBITDA was up 25.1%, due to lower resin costs, improvements to its operational structure, as well as a positive impact from the adoption of IFRS 16 accounting standards.
'Excellent Progress'
“We made excellent progress in rebuilding margins during the second quarter, allowing us to deliver very strong earnings growth across the Group," commented Alan Walsh, CEO of IPL Plastics.
"That growth was underpinned by improvements in our operations, lower resin costs and the contribution from the Loomans acquisition."
Walsh said that the business expects to report full-year adjusted earnings "at least in line" with those of last year, adding that he was "delighted" with a recent sales contract by its Consumer Packaging Solutions business with a major multinational retailer.
"Our focus remains on operational improvement initiatives, generating strong and growing cash flows from operations and on reducing our Net Debt to Adjusted EBITDA ratio by the end of the year," Walsh added. "We expect that given the progress we have made year to date, as well as the underlying robustness of our business, we will deliver a solid improvement in the Group’s trading performance for the full year.”
IPL Plastics produces sustainable packaging solutions for the food, consumer, agricultural, logistics and environmental sectors in Europe, North America and China. Formerly known as One51, it has corporate offices in Montreal and Dublin.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
