Norish shares get a boost from interim numbers

Norish announces its interim results for the six months to 30 June on Friday, with total revenue increasing to £15.6m, from £11.8m in the first half of 2015.

The London-listed firm said revenue from commodity trading increased to £9.3m from £6.1m, and revenue from its continuing temperature controlled divisions increased to £6.3m from £5.7m.

Gross profit was reported at £0.8m, a slight uplift from £0.6m, and operating profit increased to £0.49m from £0.38m.

Norish’s net assets improved over the period to £15.6m, from £10.5m, and its net debt reduced by £3.8m to £3.3m.

The company’s board said the performance of the cold store division overall was ahead in the first half of 2016, and the contribution of the commodity division overall was also ahead.

“We invested £0.6m of the funds raised in December 2015 by the end of June 2016,” the board said.

“We continue to invest in projects which provide short term payback and in the build out of our dairy business.”

It explained that during the period, Norish invested £0.3m in its temperature controlled division and another £0.3m in assembling its dairy herd

“Within the cold store division, £0.1m was invested in increasing blast freezing capacity at Wrexham, with an additional £0.1m on a number of customer IT integrations.

“We have invested £0.3m in a 500 maiden heifer herd [and] we have signed two 17 year leases for a 355 acre dairy farming project in Kilkenny,” it added.

At 1237 BST, shares in Norish were up 2.27% to 45p.