City round-up: Applied Nutrition; Unilever, Assura
Liverpool sports nutrition brand, Applied Nutrition, will be valued at £350m when it floats on the London Stock Exchange, it announced today.
It follows the successful pricing of its initial public offering at 140p per share.
CEO Thomas Ryder said: “As a homegrown UK business based in Knowsley, Liverpool, we could not be prouder to be listing on the London Stock Exchange. “We are delighted with the support shown by investors during our roadshow, and the top quality shareholder register that we have secured.
“As we reach this important milestone in our journey, I would like to thank our employees for their continuing hard work and dedication.”
He added: “We are only scratching the surface of our growth opportunity and this IPO positions us ideally for the next step of our development.
“We are confident it will assist in our vision to create the world’s most trusted and innovative sports nutrition, health & wellness brand.”
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Hein Schumacher
Consumer goods giant, Unilever, which operates a key home and personal care manufacturing site and research and development facility at Port Sunlight, Wirral, has achieved a fourth consecutive quarter of positive, improved volume growth.
Publishing its third quarter results, it revealed underlying sales growth (USG) of 4.5%, with volume growth increasing to 3.6%.
Power Brands (>75% of turnover) were leading growth with 5.4% USG and volumes up 4.3%
Turnover hit €15.2bn with (2.8)% impact from currency and (1.5)% from net disposals
The 2024 full year outlook is unchanged with 3-5% USG and an underlying operating margin of at least 18%
Chief executive, Hein Schumacher, said: “We have delivered a fourth consecutive quarter of positive, improved volume growth, with each of our Business Groups driving higher volumes year-on-year.
“Underlying sales grew 4.5%, led by our Power Brands, with particularly strong performances from Dove, Liquid I.V., Comfort and Magnum. Price growth continued to moderate in line with our expectations.”
He added: “We are still in the early stages of transforming our performance as we execute the Growth Action Plan at pace – focused on doing fewer things, better and with greater impact.
“We are starting to see the positive impact from scaling fewer, bigger innovations across our markets supported by increased brand investment. We are taking decisive actions, where we see operational or market challenges to ensure we are well positioned for consistent and improved performance.
“As part of the group’s overall transformation, we are implementing a comprehensive productivity programme and the separation of Ice Cream, both of which are progressing as planned.
“We are on track to deliver our 2024 outlook and are confident that the steps we are taking will help to transform Unilever over time into a consistently higher performing business.”
Russ Mould, investment director at Manchester investment platform, AJ Bell, said: “It’s an easy headline to suggest that since Unilever dialled down its commitments to going green and increasing diversity its fortunes have turned but, coincidence or not, things are definitely improving for the consumer goods giant.
“A little over a year into the job and CEO Hein Schumacher has made genuine progress with the business. This is reflected in today’s slightly better-than-expected third-quarter sales.
“This performance has been built on improved product innovation but also slowing down price increases. This helps explain why the company expects margin progression to slow overall in the second half of the year.”
He added: “Unilever faces a tricky balancing act between protecting its profitability and not alienating shoppers. This is a particular risk in developed markets where customers have the option of trading down to generic alternatives but less of an issue in emerging economies where these kinds of options are not readily available.
“Schumacher’s shake-up of the business continues to progress with the sale of the ice cream division on track to complete by the end of next year.”
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Jonathan Murphy, Assura CEO
Altrincham-based healthcare property group, Assura, has completed the disposal of 12 assets for cash proceeds of £25m.
The sale price is in line with the current book value of the assets and the proceeds will enable a partial repayment of the group’s revolving credit facility.
In an update on its disposal programme, the the company said it continues to make strong progress.
It is in discussions on further tranches of asset disposals with an aggregate value of approximately £110m, being a mixture of both portfolio disposals and assets for transfer into the previously announced joint venture partnership.
In addition, a further pipeline of 27 assets with an aggregate value of approximately £90m that meet the company’s disposal criteria has been identified and preliminary work on the possible disposal of these assets has begun.
As such, the company remains on track with its target to reduce net debt to EBITDA below nine times and LTV below 45% over the next 18-24 months. A further update on the disposals programme will be provided at the half-year results presentation on November 14.
CEO Jonathan Murphy said: “I am pleased that we have completed the portfolio sale of 12 assets for £25m in line with book value and illustrating the attraction of our underlying asset class.
“Our £500m private hospital portfolio acquisition in August 2024 was an important strategic step for Assura becoming a diversified healthcare REIT capitalising on the significant opportunity in the structurally-supported private hospital market.
“The progress on our disposal programme is an important next step in delivering our commitment to reduce leverage following the acquisition.”
