Profits, Turnover and Jobs up sharply at QIHL

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Positive outlook supported by €21.8m Investment.

Quinn Industrial Holdings Ltd (‘QIHL’) today publishes an overview of its 2015 operating performance.  Performance highlights include:

  • Profit Before Tax & Exceptional Costs up €20.5m
  • Turnover up 25% to €203m
  • EBITDA* up 168% from €6.2m to €16.6m
    (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation)
  • Employment up 13% to 721 (at year end)
  • Average salaries up 5%+
  • 2015 capital investment of €6.8m to be doubled to €14m in 2016

2015 marked the first full 12 month reporting period since QIHL’s acquisition of the Quinn Packaging and Quinn Building Products businesses from Aventas Manufacturing Group Limited (‘Aventas’) in December 2014.

Both Quinn Building Products and Quinn Packaging performed strongly with consolidated turnover up €41m to €203m, an increase of 25% on 2014. This translated into an EBITDA increase of 168% to €16.6m (2014: €6.2m), inclusive of the burden of a number of one-off cost adjustments following the acquisition of the business in December 2014. The resultant Profit Before Tax and Exceptional Items improved from a loss of €14.6m in 2014 to a profit of €5.9m in 2015.

Commenting, Liam McCaffrey, Chief Executive Officer, QIHL said

“2015 marked a transformative year for QIHL, stabilising and growing business and employment and restoring pride and confidence for the future.  The continuing support of our investor group for QIHL’s ongoing capital investment programme marks a major endorsement of our strategic direction and future prospects and will assist in our target of delivering a further improvement in profitability and employment in 2016.”

Chief Financial Officer, Dara O’Reilly said

“QIHL now has a solid platform for sustainable progress supported by strong sector and economic growth, a well invested infrastructure and a committed and skilled workforce. Both businesses are trading strongly year to date and we look forward to implementing the next phase of our strategic plan in the period ahead.”

While the businesses benefited from the strength of Sterling in 2015 – due to a significant portion of turnover deriving from the UK – improvements in underlying margin were achieved across the board, despite the one-off impact of acquisition related costs.

During the period, the average number of employees increased from 656 to 721 while the actual number employed at December 2015 had increased by 84 from that at December 2014. The average wage for the Group also increased by more than 5% as a result of improved productivity bonus payments while staff members also benefited from a further basic 2% salary increase in 2016, the first general increase since 2011.

The Group’s capital investment programme, including the replacement of fleet and mobile plant, commenced during 2015 and a total of €6.8m was expended in this regard over the 12 month period. In addition, the Packaging business committed to the acquisition of an additional extrusion machine which is due to be installed later in 2016. This will see extrusion capacity at Quinn Packaging increase by almost 50%.

Overall, a further capital investment of €14m is anticipated during 2016. This investment will not only see the Group continue to invest in its existing infrastructure, but also progress a number of strategic projects to facilitate the achievement of further efficiency in its operations, while at the same time enhancing its product offering to its customer base.

Outlook:

The Group is well positioned to take advantage of the recovering Irish economy as well as the strong and continuing demand from the UK construction market. These factors together with surplus capacity in a number of QIHL’s plants and investment in additional capacity in others, leaves QIHL well placed to deliver a further increase in employment and group performance in 2016.

For Reference:

Pat Walsh / Doug Keatinge,
Murray Consultants,
Tel.: +353 (0)1 4980300
Mob: +353(0)87 2269345 (Pat) / +353 (0)86 0374163 (Doug)
Email: pwalsh@murrayconsultants.ie / dkeatinge@murrayconsultants.ie