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Former Reckitt Benckiser executive Javed Ahmed oversaw his first results statement as boss of Tate & Lyle today, and reported reasonably sweet figures.
The sugar refiner and sweetener group made £112 million in the six months to the end of September, a slide of 13% that was roughly in line with City forecasts.
Sales increased by 7% to £1.82 billion.
Ahmed took over from Iain Ferguson in October, with a brief to improve cash flows and cut debt. Those debts are down more than £230 million so far this year to £987 million.
It was able to hold the dividend at 6.8p a share.
The group has suffered from swings in commodity prices but is hoping cheaper corn will help its US business by cutting raw material costs. More than 75% of its business is in America.
Tate & Lyle shares have enjoyed a decent run of late, recovering from a low of 225p in March. Today they slipped 7p to 449¾p.
Ahmed said: “Tate & Lyle performed slightly ahead of our expectations in the first half of the year, before the impact of exchange translation, despite challenging conditions in a number of our markets. We are encouraged by the good progress made in reducing net debt, reflecting our focus on reducing costs, optimising working capital and reducing capital expenditure.”
