Corbion H1 2016 Sales Increase by Less Than One Percent

10 Aug 2016 --- Corbion has announced sales of €455.7 million (US$509.2 million) for the first half of 2016, a 0.8 percent rise compared to the same period last year.

The company says organic sales growth was 1.5 percent and mostly driven by business mix improvements, whilst EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) in H1 of this year increased by 16.2 percent to €89.8 million (US$100.3 million), at the same time organic EBITDA growth was 17.8 percent.

“We can look back on a good first half of the year, and are on track to deliver our Disciplined Value Creation strategy 2015-2018 targets,” says Corbion CEO, Tjerk de Ruiter. “Our profitability, margin, and ROCE all increased substantially, driven by a combination of business mix improvements and lower input costs.”

“Strong operating performance combined with prudent investment policies resulted in improved free cash flow. As part of our strategy execution, we are in the process of improving the portfolio profitability in our food business segment, which had an adverse volumes effect in the latter part of H1.”

“As expected, the Biochemicals business segment sales growth rate showed a strong recovery in the second quarter.”

Net sales for H1 2015 were €452.3 million (US$505.2 million) and the 0.8 percent jump to €455.7 million (US$509.2 million) was also partly down to currencies (-1.0 percent) and acquisitions (0.3 percent). 

Corbion says the acquisition impact is related to the purchase of the Archer Daniels Midland lactic acid business, effective from March 2015, while organic growth in the biobased ingredients business unit of 0.5 percent was driven by both food and biochemicals. 

The main drivers in the food business segment was price/mix increase and there was an 0.4 percent organic growth, while segment volume growth was the key driver in the biochemicals business. Growth in biobased innovations was largely driven by lactide and PLA sales. 

Corbion also says in H1 2016, a total of €0.6 million (US$670,260) in one-off items were recorded on result after tax-level, including one-off costs of €2.3 million (US$2.56 million) incurred due to the closure of the Kansas Avenue powder blending plant in Q2 and a one-off gain of €1.1 million (US$1.22 million) related to a partial reversal of impairment of a loan for beet growers following the divestment of CSM Sugar in 2007.