Plastics Capital plc

("Plastics Capital", the "Company" or the "Group")

Interim Results for the six months ended 30 September 2011

Plastics Capital plc (AIM: PLA) the niche plastics products manufacturer, today announces its interim results for the six months ended 30 September 2011.

Financial highlights

* excluding amortisation, exceptional costs, unrealised foreign exchange translation and derivative gains / losses (see Note 2).

+ applying a standard tax charge of 26% and based on the average number of shares currently in issue in the year.

·    Net debt reduced by £3.6m to £11.2m

·    Maiden dividend of 0.33p per share announced

Operational highlights

·    Good earnings per share growth in spite of challenging economic environment

·    Strong cash conversion - 70% of EBITDA converted to operating cash flow

·    New business wins continue - 11 new key accounts won during first half year

·    Excellent progress with new operations in China, India and Thailand

·    Bank refinancing completed in July '11 reduces interest costs

Commenting on these results, Faisal Rahmatallah, Executive Chairman, said:

"These results reflect progress in a difficult environment.  Strong new business successes over the past 18 months have enabled us to maintain revenues, despite underlying demand weakness.  We have improved value-added margins, allowing us to increase investment in business development activities, particularly in emerging markets.  We have also refinanced our bank debt halfway through the period, significantly reducing our interest costs going forward.

Whilst the economic environment remains challenging, the Group will continue to pursue organic growth opportunities, particularly in emerging markets.  Our new business pipeline remains strong and providing the economic environment does not worsen materially the Board expects progress to be broadly in line with expectations for the rest of the financial year."

Plastics Capital plc                                                                             Tel: 020 7326 8423

Faisal Rahmatallah, Executive Chairman

Nick Ball, Finance Director

Cenkos Securities                                                                              Tel: 020 7397 8900

Stephen Keys

Liz Bowman

Walbrook PR Ltd                                                                               Tel: 020 7933 8780

Paul Cornelius                                                              paul.cornelius@walbrookir.com

Helen Westaway                                                          helen.westaway@walbrookpr.com

Notes to Editor

Plastics Capital manufactures innovative plastics products for global niche markets.  The Group has four factories in the UK, one in Thailand and sales offices in the USA, Japan, China and India.  Approximately 65 per cent of sales are sold outside the UK to over 80 countries worldwide.  Production is concentrated in the UK where significant engineering know-how and automation underpins the Group's competitiveness.  The Group has approximately 300 employees.

Further information can be found on www.plasticscapital.com

Chairman's Statement

Financial Review

Overall these interim results reflect continued earnings growth despite a difficult macroeconomic environment.

Compared to the same period last year, on an underlying basis the Group has:

·    Maintained revenue at £16.3m

·    Operating performance broadly unchanged

·    Increased profit before tax and earnings per share by 10.5%

·    Reduced net debt by £3.6m to £11.2m

Value-added margins have improved compared to the same period last year and have compensated for the investment in business development activity that has been made since then.  Meanwhile, unit volumes were 5% down despite a good contribution from new business. The improvement in underlying profitability was primarily related to a reduction in interest costs caused by two factors; first, total debt has been reduced over the period, and, second, a refinancing was completed in July 2011, which has resulted in a lower average interest rate being paid.

Underlying operating cash flow has been good with £1.8m being generated for the six month period - this represents a 70% conversion from EBITDA.  Working capital has been well managed and capital expenditure has been maintained at normal levels.

In addition to cash flow from operations, we were able to realise £0.4m from the sale of a 40% stake held in a private company called Skor Srl ("Skor"), based in San Marino.  This minority stake was a legacy asset from the acquisition in August 2007 of Channel Matrix Limited and had a book value of £0.03m - the profit on the sale has been classified as an exceptional gain and is also excluded from underlying profitability.  Skor had a complex and inefficient long term supply and distribution arrangement with C&T Matrix Limited ("C&T") which has now been restructured to the long term benefit of the Group.  Finally, the Group redeemed £0.6m of outstanding deferred consideration associated with the acquisition in March 2008 of Palagan.  The transformation of the Group's balance sheet since the 2008 crisis is evident.

The Company is pleased to announce that it intends to pay an interim dividend of 0.33p to all shareholders on 6 January 2012 in respect of the period ended 30 September 2011.  The record date for the dividend is 9 December 2011 and the associated ex div date is 7 December 2011.

Key Accounts

Our key account strategy is successfully moving forward.  65 key accounts (customers with annual sales potential exceeding £100,000) now account for 59% of group sales.  11 new key accounts have been converted during the first six months of the year, including:

·    Leading creasing matrix distributors in Italy, Germany and China

·    Initial projects for new customers in automotive, business and postal machinery sectors

·    First production orders from major hydraulic hose manufacturers in Japan and Korea

Much of this success results from increased sales pressure focused on the application segments where we already have strong "beachheads", together with new product innovation which has also played a key role in some cases.

We are confident that these new accounts will deliver significant revenue growth over the medium term.

New Products

The overriding focus across the Group is to find new plastic material technologies and product designs which deliver improved solutions for customers - these may, for example, be related to requirements for lower weight, better integration, and higher yield/quality.  The flexibility that highly engineered plastics can provide continues to result in numerous and diverse opportunities for new customer solutions through product innovation.

During the first six months of the year we have:

·    Introduced a new range of creasing matrix, called Traxplus, which has a material technology that is targeted at a substantial segment of the market in which we have not competed effectively until now - The new product was launched successfully and a full scale marketing and sales campaign will commence in January 2012

·    Introduced a new range of high strength/high flexibility mandrels for the manufacture of very high pressure hydraulic hoses

·    Developed new plastic bearing solutions for automotive interior/instrument panel applications. This is a completely new application segment with enormous potential. A number of live projects are currently under evaluation

·    Installed new production equipment enabling us to make thinner protective films. These new films open up new high growth market segments

New Territories

The newly established sales offices in China has won further business in the poultry conveyor bearings market and completed its first project with a division of Pacific Century, a Chinese state controlled enterprise.  Also, we have appointed two further distributors of creasing matrix, both with national coverage. Our presence in Shanghai simplifies existing and new trading relationships and signifies our commitment to the region.

In India, we have appointed six sub-distributors serving the key territories across the region, whilst major accounts are being dealt with direct by our team in Mumbai, where we have a distribution facility.

In Thailand, where we have a significant manufacturing presence, we have won our first local customer and will be looking to develop further business through direct sales efforts.

Demand

Ignoring new business, volumes compared to the same period last year on a like-for-like basis are down by 7%.  There are three underlying causes of this, each contributing in similar proportion were:

·    Firstly, this year has not benefitted from last year's restocking by customers as the global economy emerged from recession - with the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that some customers overstocked in anticipation of a strong and sustained recovery, which of course has not happened

·    Secondly, the Japanese tsunami interrupted supply chains for our Japanese customers leading to a significant reduction in demand

·    Thirdly, a generally depressed global demand environment - no doubt as a result of uncertainty fed by the Eurozone and US debt crises

The first two factors will gradually recede in importance during the rest of the financial year - the third is more difficult to judge.

Operations and Costs

The operational side of the business has been managed tightly given the difficult environment. 

Raw material costs have either been steady or slightly declining in price, which has helped us to improve value added margin.  Margins have also benefitted from our currency hedging strategy in the first half of the year.  Having added business development staff last year we have decided that this investment was the right thing to do and will pay dividends in the long run.  No significant cost cutting exercise has been deemed sensible or necessary despite the poor economic conditions.  Therefore in the half year overall, improved value-added margin has been negated by increased business development costs.

Management

There have been two significant changes of senior personnel within the Group.  At C&T, Simon Shenton took over as CEO at the end of the prior financial year and has now been in position for eight months.  I am pleased to report that he has already addressed and successfully resolved important issues that had applied to C&T for some time.  At BNL (UK) Limited, we expect to announce in the coming days the appointment of a new CEO to replace Neil Partlett.  In the meantime, the experienced management team is maintaining the momentum that the business has established. 

Outlook

Trading continues to be rather patchy.  Looking ahead into next year, on the positive side there are the following factors:

·    the adverse effect of the Japanese tsunami on our customers' global supply chains has largely passed;

·    order books are currently satisfactory, except for the relatively small part of our business which focuses on industrial capital goods end-markets; and

·    we expect new business to contribute increasingly in the second half of the year 

On the negative side:

·    some of our customers remain overstocked due to this year's slowdown compared to last year;

·    the flooding around Bangkok is causing some disruption to the supply chains of our customers - we should stress that our factory is completely unaffected as it is located 200 km away and above the flood basin; and

·    extreme political and economic uncertainty is a dominant factor in Europe and the USA

It is difficult to judge how these opposing forces, some of which are unprecedented, will combine and impact second half performance. We are well placed to weather a storm should it come, as our costs are well controlled, cash flow is strong and our banking position is robust. We remain very confident about the direction and the potential growth of the Group.

Faisal Rahmatallah

Executive Chairman. 

Plastics Capital plc

Consolidated Income Statement

for the six months ended 30 September 2011

Plastics Capital plc

Consolidated Income Statement (continued)

for the year ended 31 March 2011

Plastics Capital plc

Consolidated Balance Sheets

Plastics Capital plc

Consolidated Cash Flow Statements