Croda International Plc (CRDA) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, everyone. Great to see so many of you here at the London Stock Exchange. Welcome to all of you who've joined us virtually as well. I'm here with Anthony Fitzpatrick, our interim CFO, and we'll both run through our respective sections of the presentation set out on this slide. And as soon as we've done that, we'll be very happy to take your questions. So it's been another transitional year for Crota, following two exceptionally strong years in 21 and 22. Sales growth was weaker than we'd hoped, but proactive actions to reduce cost and drive efficiency enabled us to deliver profits in line with expectations. Overall, this performance is still a far cry from where we want to be. And we've continued to take further steps to strengthen the business by making Crota more focused and more efficient. So I'll start with a summary of the results and talk about constant currency changes to give you a better understanding of the underlying trends. Group sales were down 1% or up 2%, excluding the 48 million of covered lipid sales in the prior year. Sales volumes started to recover and increased demand for innovation helped sales of new and protected products to grow by 6%. The adjusted operating margin was down year on year, with 2023 having benefited from high margin covered lipids. However, it improved half on half, supported by strong operating execution with price discipline and proactive cost control. So overall, whilst PBT was 12% lower than last year, it was within our guidance range at £273 million or £260 million on a reported basis. Cash flow remained strong and we applied working capital discipline and reduced our capex after several years of significant investment. The performance across our businesses was mixed. Sales grew 7% in consumer care and 2% in i...