Natural ingredients and flavours propel Q2 growth for Frutarom
The acquisition-hungry Israeli firm has acquired a good clutch of business across the globe in the last three years; in 2007 it bought no less than seven, before a period of consolidation the following year. In Q2 2009 it bought Chr Hansen’s US-focused savoury division.
The latest set of results shows in increase of 10 per cent in revenues in Q2 compared to the previous year in local currencies, to US$114.3m, or 7.1 per cent in US$, its reporting currency. Gross profit was up 18.9 per cent to $46.9m.
Ori Yehudai, Frutarom’s President and CEO, said: "We are satisfied by the continued positive trends expressed in the further achievement of organic growth while materially improving profit and margin which hit this quarter record levels. We witness fine results from the further improvement of our product mix and from the steps we took to strengthen and improve Frutarom's competitiveness and strengthen its operational efficiency.”
A downside to the quarter for Frutarom was the hit to currencies, however. The euro and the British pound both weakened significantly, although the Israeli new shekel (NIS) strengthened and offset this effect to some extent.
Yehudai indicated that further acquisitions could be on the cards.
“The company's strong capital, its low debt level and the positive cash flow it generates, will enable us, combined with support from leading banks, to continue and implement acquisitions.
“We will decisively continue to act to implement our rapid growth strategy which combines organic growth and strategic acquisitions and the two together will allow us to again double our sales turnover in the next 4 years, to approximately US$ 1 billion".
