Tate & Lyle plc (TATE) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I am pleased to present Tate and Lar's results for the year ended 31st of March 2024. The agenda for today's presentation is on the screen. I will begin with an overview of the year. Dawn will run through the financial results, and then I will come back to talk about our strategic progress and the outlook. Finally, Dawn and I will be happy to take your questions. So starting with the key headlines. we successfully delivered a strong financial performance in a challenging external environment, with profit growth in line with our guidance and excellent cash generation. The sale of our remaining interest in premiums, which we also announced today, completes the transformation of Tate & Lyle into a fully focused speciality food and beverage solutions business. Following completion of this transaction, we intend to start a share buyback programme to return the net cash proceeds from the sale to shareholders. We continue to make good progress delivering our strategy, with Solutions' new business wins once again increasing in the year. We are also taking a leadership position on sustainability, a critical area for the future of the food industry. Turning to our financial performance. Group revenue was 2% lower, with EBITDA up 7%. Free cash flow was £49 million higher, with 85% cash conversion. And we delivered $41 million of productivity savings, significantly ahead of target. Earlier today, we announced we have signed an agreement to sell our remaining stake in Premiumt to KPS Capital Partners for $350 million. This values our 49.7% stake well ahead of the valuation when we sold a controlling interest in this business in April 2022. It is anticipated that the completion of the sale will be before the end of July and tha...