Croda International proposes special dividend following strong results

Croda International has seen record reported sales for the year to 31 December 2015, which is prompting the company to return large dividends to its shareholders.

The FTSE 250 chemical ingredients company posted £1.082bn of sales for the year, up from £1.047bn the previous year.

Profit before tax also rose from £235.4m to £254.7m for the year – an 8.2% rise on 2014.

The company said the results reflected underlying sales growth in all four sectors and from all regional geographies.

It also highlighted that its performance has been driven by innovation, with New and Protected Products growing at four times underlying sales and representing 26.1% of total sales.

Croda International proposed a final dividend of 38p per share, taking the full year dividend to 69p.

However it is also proposing to return £136m to shareholders by way of a special dividend of 100p per share, combined with a share consolidation.

The company said it will bring its leverage to around the mid-point of the board's target range of 1 to 1.5 times net debt to EBITDA.

Chief executive Steve Foots said it has been a strong year of progress.

“A relentless focus on innovation, improved proximity to our customers and investment in fast growth markets has delivered record reported sales and pre-tax profit, together with a special dividend to shareholders.

“Looking ahead, whilst we expect market conditions to remain challenging, our strong innovation pipeline and the benefits of our customer-led investment in capacity mean that we are confident of delivering continued progress in 2016."

Shares in Croda surged 94p (3.29%) to 2,954 by 0949 GMT.