Profits fall by more than £4m at Manchester personal care products maker

Profits have fallen by more than £4m at Manchester based personal care products manufacturer McBride.

The company, which has its headquarters in Middleton, saw a nine per cent increase in revenues to £689.8m but adjusted operating profit fell by £4.3m to £37.7m.

The drop has been blamed in an increase in the cost of raw materials and transport.

The company had operating profits of £31.8m compared to £40.3m last year after adjustment for items of £5.9m.

Adjusted profits before tax from continuing operations were £33.2m, a fall of £1.9m.

Chief executive Rik De Vos said: “Whilst our trading performance in the year ended slightly behind our early expectations, we have continued to outperform our sector both financially and operationally in what has been a particularly challenging environment.

“Against this backdrop I am pleased that our teams have made such excellent progress in the execution of our strategy.

“We achieved good growth in our key categories and geographies, the integration of Danlind is progressing well, and the exit from a major part of our PCA business in Europe allows us to focus fully on our core activities in European Household.”

He added: “In the current year we remain focused on the profitable delivery of our anticipated volume growth whilst continuing to take actions to mitigate strong input cost inflation, including commercial price recovery from our customers.

“We will also maintain close control of overheads whilst investing in key focus areas that will enable McBride to fully exploit its scale and cost advantage within its supply chain.

“Revenues in the first few months of the new financial year have been satisfactory and whilst certain cost pressures persist, at this stage the Board remains confident the Group will achieve its full year expectations.”