McBride plc (the “Group”), the leading European manufacturer and supplier of Contract Manufactured and Private Label products for the domestic Household and professional cleaning and hygiene markets, provides the following trading update, ahead of the publication of its interim results for the six months ended 31 December 2018 on Thursday 21 February 2019.
As announced in our trading update of 10 January, the Group achieved good sales growth in the first half period, with continuing underlying revenues, excluding the benefit of first quarter revenues from Danlind, up 6.0% on the prior year.
However, the Group continues to see pressure on its cost base. We continue to expect the overall raw material pricing outlook to show improvements in the second half, but not to the extent anticipated in early January. In addition, distribution costs continue to rise beyond our previous estimates due to market rates and efficiency challenges driven by logistics capacity shortfalls and internal service gaps. Accordingly, although the Group continues to anticipate further good sales growth in the second half year, the Board now expects full year adjusted profits before tax to be approximately 10% to 15% lower than the prior financial year1.