Tate & Lyle PLC (LON:TATE) saw its pre-tax profits rise by nearly a quarter in its full-year results, however sales for the group dipped slightly.
The FTSE 250 ingredients group and producer of the Splenda sweetener brand reported that pre-tax profits rose 23% to £286mln in the year, while sales dropped 2% to £2.7bn.
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The company increased its final dividend by 0.5p to 20.3p per share, taking the total dividend for the year to 28.7p.
The results will be the last for outgoing chief executive Javed Ahmed, who stood down at the end of March and was replaced by chief financial officer Nick Hampton.
The group also said it would sharpen its focus on its beverages, dairy, and soups, sauces and dressings categories in order to boost profit growth.
The company added that a programme to simplify the business would be aiming to deliver US$100mln of productivity improvements over four years.
Looking ahead, Hampton said: “For the year ending 31 March 2019, we expect growth in earnings per share in constant currency to be in a mid-single digit range, albeit towards the lower end due to energy and transport cost inflation in North America and a strong year of Commodities performance in fiscal 2018.
He added: “Looking further ahead, as our three programmes gather momentum, we expect growth in earnings per share2 to accelerate, organic return on capital employed2 to improve and strong cash generation to support our progressive dividend policy.”
In a note to clients, analysts at Liberum commented: “Tate & Lyle reported solid FY18 results. Adjusted pre-tax profits of £301m beat consensus expectations by 1% while adjusted diluted EPS of 50.1p rose 6% beating consensus by 2%.”
In early morning trading Thursday, Tate and Lyle shares were up 1.6% at 619p.