Revenues more than double to £100m at acquisitive Benchmark
Acquisitive life sciences business Benchmark has more than doubled revenues following a major £230m acquisition and says it is at the forefront of the ‘Blue Revolution’ as it looks to consolidate its position.
In its preliminary results for the year to September 2016, the Sheffield-based business increased turnover from £44.2m the previous year to £109.4m.
This was attributed to the acquisition of INVE Aquaculture in December 2015 for US$342m (£230m), creating a new Advanced Animal Nutrition division.
An operating loss of £20.5m, nearly double the £11.6m loss in 2015, was attributed to costs relating to the acquisition.
Benchmark said it had cost £12.9m to integrate the business, and the company had invested a further £11.7m in research and development, up from £6.6m the year before.
During the year it also completed a bolt-on acquisition of world leading shrimp breeding programme in Colombia with chief executive Malcolm Pye saying: “Seafood is becoming a more desirable and important component of diets across the world, driven by increasing health, wealth and the limitations of the current food chain.”
Pye, CEO of Benchmark, said: “Our acquisition strategy has already begun to show its strategic worth, providing access to a wider client base and technical insight which is enhancing our existing suite of products, as well as an established distribution network into fast growing markets.
“We continue to execute our strategy of deploying world leading technology through established distribution channels into long term growth markets.
“As planned, we have been investing in manufacturing capacity this year in order to serve our fast growing portfolio of products, with our state-of-the-art plant in Braintree in its commissioning phase.
“This increased capacity will allow us to deliver our product pipeline which continues to progress well, with a number of products expected to enter commercialisation from 2017 to 2019. We are now the world’s biggest player in aquaculture biotechnology, placing us at the forefront of this ‘Blue Revolution’.”
