Highlights
• Continued robust financial performance
• Revenue up 8%
• Return on capital employed a strong 18.7%
• Underlying operating profit of €497 million
• Underlying EBITDA of €710 million
• Good progress in delivering on major capital investment projects
• Integration of recent acquisitions on track, expanding the Group’s geographic reach and product offering to better serve our customers
• Lower forestry fair value gain of €20 million (2016: €48 million) and higher maintenance shuts of €40 million (2016: €20 million) impacted first half results
• Interim dividend declared of 19.10 euro cents per share
Peter Oswald, Mondi Group chief executive, said: “Mondi delivered a robust performance in the first half of 2017, with revenue up 8%, underlying operating profit of €497 million and a return on capital employed of 18.7%, reflecting management’s ongoing value focus and the strength of our business model. Profitability was down on the comparable prior year period, mainly driven by a significantly lower forestry fair value gain in South Africa and the impact of mill maintenance shuts.
We continue to drive growth through our capital investment programme. During the period, we commissioned the second phase of our major investment in the ongoing development of our world-class facility in Poland, while good progress is being made on the modernisation of our kraft paper facility in Czech Republic. The integration of acquisitions completed during 2016 and early 2017 is on track. These acquisitions enhance our geographic reach and product portfolio in Corrugated Packaging and Consumer Packaging.
The market outlook remains broadly positive. We saw strong demand across Packaging Paper and Corrugated Packa ging in the first half and successfully implemented price increases across certain paper grades, the full effect of which is anticipated in the second half. The second half of the year will be impacted by planned maintenance shuts at a number of our mills and the usual seasonal downturn in Uncoated Fine Paper. While we continue to see some inflationary cost pressures, we remain confident of making progress in the year and continuing to deliver industry leading returns.”
more detail at: https://www.mondigroup.com/media/8501/mondi-group-half-yearly-results-announcement-2017-final.pdf