Smurfit Kappa Group plc Q1 2018 Trading Update

Smurfit Kappa Group plc (‘SKG’, ‘Smurfit Kappa’ or ‘the Group’) today announced a trading update for the 3 months ending 31 March 2018.

First Quarter Overview – Significant year-on-year improvement across all key metrics
* Group underlying1 revenue growth of 7% year-on-year
* Group EBITDA growth of 22% year-on-year to €340 million
* EBITDA margin of 15.7%, significant year-on-year improvement
* Increased ROCE of 16.1%
* Improved net debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.2x; medium-term target of 1.75x to 2.5x
* Proposed final dividend for 2017 of 64.5 cent per share, a 12% increase year-on-year, payable on 11 May
* Full-year outcome expected to be materially better than 2017; delivering continued EBITDA growth

Performance Review
Smurfit Kappa Group is pleased to report a strong performance with significant year-on-year improvement across all key metrics. Underlying revenue grew by 7% and reported EBITDA grew by 22% year-on-year resulting in a first quarter reported EBITDA of €340 million. These results reflect the ongoing benefits of our capital investment programme and strong demand in most markets where SKG is increasingly working with its customers to help them sell more and reduce their cost of doing business.

During the quarter, the Group continued to implement pricing initiatives and experienced good demand growth across most markets with reported revenue of €2,168 million. The first quarter outcome was positively influenced by lower average recovered fibre costs of €17 million year-on-year, which were largely offset by higher other costs and a negative currency translation impact primarily related to the fall in the US dollar versus the euro.

First quarter EBITDA translates to a first quarter EBITDA margin of 15.7%, an increase of 2.7 percentage points on a margin of 13.0% in the first quarter of 2017.

The Group’s first quarter ROCE was 16.1% equalling the Group’s previous record.
more detail at: https://www.smurfitkappa.com/vHome/com/Newsroom/PressReleases/Pages/Q1-2018-Trading-Update.aspx

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