Cussons reports strong performance

Reporting its half year financial results, the household products and personal care group's chairman Anthony Green said: "The group has delivered a strong performance in the first half despite the economic environment remaining fragile. Investment in both our brand portfolio and our supply chain facilities has enabled us to deliver continued profitable growth in the short term as well as laying the foundations for longer term growth in all three regions in which we operate. "We continue our focus on people and our talent management programme is ensuring that we have both the number and calibre of people needed to deliver our ambitious growth plans. "Importantly, our balance sheet remains strong with continued cash generation. We are in the final year of our major capital investment programme at the end of which our supply chain facilities in our key markets of UK and Nigeria will have been upgraded to world class standards. "Overall performance since the period end has been in line with management expectations. We remain cautiously optimistic for the full year outturn and well placed to pursue further investment opportunities." Revenue for the half year was £369.9 million, up 0.7% on the same period last time while pre-tax profit was up 21% to £44.7 million (£36.9m).