Carr’s profits hold steady

AGRICULTURE, food and engineering group Carr’s Milling industries has held half year profits steady at £5.3m, despite a 7.5% fall in turnover.

The Carlisle-based group saw turnover fall to £161.2m for the half year to February 27 (2009: £174.5m) but managed to slightly increase pre-tax profits to £5.3m (2009: £5.2m).

Chris Holmes, chief executive, said the results were ahead of expectations and that they reflect a stronger performance in the group’s agriculture manufacturing segment.

He added “The group has continued to progress despite the turbulent raw material markets which have affected the feed and fertiliser market, in particular, over the past two years.

“Group trading in March was good, particularly sales of fertiliser and feed blocks, and overall agriculture continues to trade satisfactorily.”

He added that second half pre-tax profits were expected to be higher than last year because trading in the agriculture manufacturing segment will not be significantly affected by the sharp fall in fertiliser prices that was endured last year.

The company added that it is to introduce three dividends a year, rather than two, in the ratio 1:1:2.

It said this was to reduce the virtual 1:3 weighting in favour of the final dividend, given the company’s trading tends to be seasonally biased towards the first half of the year.

It will pay a first interim dividend of 6p a share.