Tate & Lyle PLC (LSE:TATE) climbed over 4% on Thursday after announcing stronger profit over the last year and the sale of its remaining stake in Primient.
Pre-tax profit climbed 18% to £287 million in the year to March, the food and beverage firm said on Thursday, despite a 2% fall in revenue to £1.65 billion on softer demand.
Tate & Lyle also announced the sale of its remaining 49.7% stake in ingredients producer Primient for US$350 million (£275 million).
“The sale of our remaining stake in Primient represents an important milestone for our business,” chief executive Nick Hampton said.
“With this sale, the transformation of Tate & Lyle into a fully-focused speciality food and beverage solutions business is complete.”
A final dividend of 12.9p per share was declared, taking payments to 19.1p for the full year, up 3.2%.
Tate & Lyle guided for pre-tax earnings to increase between 4% and 7% over the coming year, as a focus on margins over volume growth continues.
Shares climbed 4.8% to 709.53p.