Tate & Lyle on Track to Meet Expectations

02/04/08 In a trading update for the year ended 31 March 2008, Tate & Lyle has said that the Group’s trading performance since the Interim Management Statement (“IMS”) on 15 February 2008 further reinforces the Board’s overall expectations as set out in the IMS, that the outturn for our continuing operations in the second half of the year to 31 March 2008 will be broadly similar to that of the first six months.

The profit before tax for the first six months of the year ending 31 March 2008 from continuing operations, after adjusting for exceptional items and the amortisation of acquired intangible assets and the reclassification of the profit before tax for Occidente from continuing operations to discontinued operations, was £117 million.

Net debt of £1,036 million at the end of February was in line with our internal forecast made at the time of the IMS.

Tate & Lyle said that they now anticipate a reduction in profit before tax of approximately £11 million for the year as a whole from exchange translation by comparison with the prior year. The average sterling : US dollar exchange rate of 2.01 (2007: 1.89) for the year ending March 2008 was the main factor behind this, although the impact of the translation of the US dollar was partially offset by other currency movements, and in particular by the stronger euro.

Following approval from shareholders at the AGM in July 2007 to purchase up to 10% of the issued share capital at that time, we had acquired by the close of business on 31 March 2008 33.6 million shares (6.9% of the issued share capital at the time of the AGM) for a total cash consideration of £159 million. The Company had 457.2 million ordinary shares in issue at 31 March 2008, excluding 2.8 million ordinary shares held in Treasury.

The average number of shares in issue during the year for use in calculating basic earnings per share is 475 million, and the estimate for calculating diluted earnings per share is 481 million shares. Tate & Lyle will announce its preliminary results on 22 May 2008.