Naturex doubles Q1 net profit as merger benefits arrive

30-May-2011 - Last updated on 31-May-2011 at 12:07 GMT

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Financials are on the rise at Naturex

French botanicals supplier Naturex has seen its 2011 Q1 net profit double from €2.4m to €4.8m on revenues of €64m, as benefits of its 2009 expansion kick in.

That was a 24% jump on 2010’s Q1 revenue of €51.6m, and left the company that in 2009 doubled its operations with the €110m purchase of Spanish player Natraceutical Group with an operating margin of 12.2% for the quarter. Operating income rose 47.2% to €7.8m from €5.3m in Q1 2010.

Naturex, which employs 950 people in 11 global sites, noted the merger was delivering pan-geographic sales synergies that contributed to a gross margin increase of 30.8% to €37.4m.

"These excellent results for the quarter confirm the solid performance of 2010 and are very closely in line with the yearly targets for growth and profitability announced for 2011", said Jacques Dikansky, president, CEO and founder of Naturex

"During the upcoming quarters, we are going to continue with our organic development by combining our scientific, technical and sales expertise in order to offer natural ingredients with a high value added, in line with our customers' expectations, in all of the countries where we are located. »

Further acquisitions, emerging markets

At a recent presentation of its 2010 full-year results that saw it grow profit of €14.8m on a 21.6% increase in revenue to €226.3m from €186.1 in 2009, Dikansky recently told NutraIngredients that further acquisitions were likely in 2011.

“In 2011 we expect strong organic growth for the group and we also have a few acquisition projects ongoing,” he said.

“We expect to finalise something during the second half of the year. We have projects of acquisition – companies … in natural ingredients for the food industry, nutraceutical or cosmetic applications.We have companies in view between €5-20m in Europe, the US and other parts of the world.”

Dikansky said the company and the botanical extracts sector was benefitting from an explosion in demand in emerging economies and that the integration of Natraceutical was complete.

“We have opened a lot of sales offices in these markets and we will think about establishing production or acquiring production companies in these countries also.”