Annual General Meeting and Trading Update

RNS Number : 5858K

Cropper(James) PLC

31 July 2013

 



31 July 2013

James Cropper PLC ("James Cropper" or the "Company")

Annual General Meeting and Trading Update

At the Company's AGM held at 11.00am today, Mark Cropper, Chairman, made the following statement:

"I am pleased to report that the Group has traded profitably in the first quarter of the new financial year in line with management expectations".

"James Cropper Speciality Papers ("Speciality Papers") has started the year well, with total sales in the quarter up 13% on the comparable period last year. Overall volume was up 16%, with export volumes up 20%".

"The cost of Northern Bleached Softwood Kraft virgin wood-pulp started the year at US$830/tonne and had risen to US$860/tonne at 30^th June 2013. Some market analysts believe that the price of pulp has now peaked and will fall during the remainder of 2013, before increasing again in early 2014. Fibre extracted from Speciality Papers' innovative Reclaimed Fibre plant currently represents an average pulp substitution rate of approximately 10% in our overall production. This fibre is extremely high quality which makes it an ideal substitute for pulp as well as mitigating the impact of pulp price volatility. It is intended that the level of overall substitution by the end of the current financial year will be in the region of 13%".

"Sales in Technical Fibre Products were slightly down on the comparable period in 2012 primarily due to the timing of sales into the Defence sector. We expect to see growth in this sector over the full year and are currently on-track to achieve this".

"James Cropper Converting traded ahead of the first quarter of last year as demand for launch stocks of Digital Printing and Art & Framing products into the USA led to a c.30% increase in sales. This increased sales level is not expected to be sustained for the remainder of the year."

"Export markets are very important to us, representing 49% of total turnover in the past financial year. It was very pleasing that across the Group sales into the USA were up 24%, offsetting the 12% decline in sales into continental Europe. Given the progress we have recently made I anticipate that in the current financial year all of our businesses will make further gains in their export markets".

"Increasing substitution of virgin wood-pulp with re-cycled pulp from our Reclaimed Fibre facility is also expected to improve margins on some of our products in Speciality Papers in the coming years".

"Although global economic factors remain challenging I am confident that the plans being formulated and deployed under Phil Wild's leadership will deliver growth in profits".

Mark Cropper

Chairman

Enquiries:
John Denman, Group Finance Director	Richard Baty, Paul Gillam
James Cropper PLC	Westhouse Securities Limited
Tel: [phone]	Tel: [phone]
www.cropper.com

 

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