Agriculture group enjoying strong growth to £556m revenue

Cheshire-based agriculture company NWF Group has enjoyed growth across all three of its divisions with revenue hitting nearly £556m.

Its turnover for the year to May 31 is 19.3% ahead of last year’s figure of £465.9m while pre-tax profits grew by a modest 3.4% to £8.5m (2016: £8.3m).

Headline earnings per share are up from 5.8p to a record 14p this year and dividend per share increased from 3.9p per share to 6p per share.

Over the same period net debt has risen from £9.2 to £13m.

Its feeds division enjoyed headline profit of £1.5m following a good second-half recovery following the impact of margin pressure due to increased commodity costs, particularly through the winter months.

In food, headline operating profit was £3m (2016: £2.7m) – a strong result built on efficiently delivering increased activity levels with the business operating at capacity throughout the year.

In fuels, the headline operating profit was £4.5m (2016: £3.9m) thanks to strong volume growth across the depot network.

Meanwhile, the Nantwich-headquartered company has invested £5.2m in mill developments in Longtown in Cumbria, which was acquired with the Jim Peet business in 2016 and the blending facility at Wardle in Greater Manchester has been automated which improves the production capacity for this growing segment of the market and increases efficiency.

Chief executive Richard Whiting said: “”NWF delivered a solid performance last year with increased activity in all three divisions and the benefits of the diversified business model resulted in record earnings per share.

“The increase in profitability and strong cash generation also enabled the Group to continue its investment strategy, with major feed mill expansions completed in the year.

“We continue to see opportunity for further strategic and operational progress and our performance in the current financial year to date has been in line with our expectations.”