Food ingredients group Symrise has posted an increase in half-year profits, boosted by the company’s positive performance in North America.
Net income for the half year rose 8% to EUR84m (US$103.1m), while EBITDA reached EUR162.5m, compared to EUR174m last year.
Sales climbed 7% to EUR872m, primarily because of the group’s 19% sales increase in North America. Latin American and Asia also performed well with sales up 18% and 11% respectively.
Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bertram, CEO of Symrise, said: “We continued to gain momentum in the second quarter and benefited from a considerable rise in demand in both, the Emerging Markets and established markets. Once again, Symrise achieved an EBITDA margin of 20%.
“This is a notable achievement considering the impacts from high raw material and energy prices as well as ramp-up costs for our new menthol plant. Although many questions remain surrounding the development of the eurozone, we expect further growth in the second half of the year.”
Symrise reconfirmed its full-year sales guidance of 3-5%.
Meanwhile, Markus Mayer, analyst at Kepler Markets, said: “Due to numbers above expectations, we expect Symrise’s share price to show an outperformance today. However, after Symrise’s share price outperformed in advance of the numbers and the fact that the guidance was not raised despite the better-than-expected numbers we do not expect a strong outperformance as the upward revision after the numbers should be limited.”
