Business
COVID 19 update
COVID 19 update.
About this update from James Cropper Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \n \n RNS Number : 4347H\n Cropper(James) PLC\n 24 March 2020\n \n \n \n \n 24 March 2020\n \n James Cropper plc\n (\"James Cropper\" or the \"Company\")\n COVID 19 update\n \n Given the rapidly changing developments regarding COVID 19, James Cropper issues this update. \n \n \n Our approach to COVID 19\n \n \n Our guiding principles on how we are responding to COVID 19 are to:\n \n \n · \n protect the health and wellbeing of our employees and their families;\n \n \n · \n support our customers; and \n \n \n · \n reduce costs and conserve cash to increase our financial resilience\n \n \n \n \n \n Following the governments' lockdown announcement on 23rd March, James Cropper continues to manufacture in all of its locations globally. We have, however, enabled as many people as possible to work from home. We will continue to follow developments closely and will take further action as appropriate.\n \n \n Financial priorities\n \n \n As the situation has continued to develop with increasing uncertainty over its impact and duration, our priorities have been to understand better the potential impact on the Company's financial position by stress testing a range of scenarios and to take prompt action to preserve the Company's liquidity. These measures have included, but are not limited to, putting capital expenditure on hold, a hiring freeze and reducing discretionary spend. To provide maximum flexibility, the Company has fully drawn down on its available bank facilities and expects to have approximately £10 million in liquid cash resources at the year end, 28th March 2020. \n \n \n \n \n \n Current trading\n \n \n \n To date we have not experienced a downturn in demand as a result of COVID 19 and, in respect of the year ending 28 March 2020, we expect to meet market expectations. However, as central governments take further action to contain and delay the spread of the virus, we expect that demand for packaging materials will reduce overall and this would affect our Packaging and Colourform divisions, albeit we foresee an increase in demand for packaging relating to the online retail segment. As regards our TFP division, our current focus is on solving logistical challenges imposed by reducing global airfreight capacity. TFP products are specified into customer pr...