Interim Management Statement

Interim Management Statement

Tate & Lyle PLC

Tate & Lyle PLC

INTERIM MANAGEMENT STATEMENT

Tate & Lyle PLC issues the following management statement covering the period from 1 October 2009 to 31 December 2009.

TRADING PERFORMANCE

The Group’s profit before tax1 for the nine months to 31 December 2009, before the impact of exchange translation, was in line with our expectations.

The trading patterns experienced during the first half year have continued, although the Group’s performance in the third quarter was marginally below our expectations, before the impact of exchange translation, due principally to lower industrial sales volumes in Food & Industrial Ingredients, Americas. Sucralose, Food & Industrial Ingredients, Europe and Sugars each performed in line with our expectations in the quarter. As expected, Sugars delivered improved margins following the final institutional price change on 1 October 2009.

BALANCE SHEET

Our strong focus on cash management has continued, and net debt at 31 December 2009 was £864 million, a further reduction of £123 million during the quarter. This improvement was due to strong free cash flows from continuing operations, driven principally by continuing reductions in working capital throughout the business.

On 25 November 2009, we issued £200 million of 6.75% 10-year bonds, with the proceeds used to refinance existing debt, including the repurchase of £100 million of bonds maturing in 2012, thereby lengthening our average maturity of gross debt to 5.3 years.

CUSTOMER CONTRACTING

The 2010 calendar year pricing rounds at our Food & Industrial Ingredients businesses in the Americas and Europe, which have been conducted against the backdrop of the lower demand we have seen following the economic downturn, are now substantially complete.

Sweetener selling prices in the Americas for the 2010 calendar year will be below the level achieved in the 2009 calendar year. After taking into account lower input costs, including net corn costs, overall sweetener margins in the 2010 calendar year within the Americas are expected to be somewhat below the 2009 calendar year.

OUTLOOK

We expect reported operating profit for the full year to be marginally below the level reported in the comparative period. We continue to expect the reported net interest cost in the 2010 financial year to be higher than the comparative period due to an increase in charges related to post retirement benefit plans and the suspension of interest capitalisation in respect of the Fort Dodge, Iowa plant while final completion is postponed.

We will continue to build on the good progress we have made to date in strengthening the Group’s balance sheet through reducing costs and optimising both working capital and capital expenditure.

Note 1: All references to profit refer to the Group’s continuing operations adjusted to exclude exceptional items and amortisation of acquired intangible assets. We assume a £:US$ exchange rate of 1.68 in translating profits for the balance of the 2010 financial year.

END

A conference call will be held today at 8.00am GMT, hosted by Javed Ahmed, Chief Executive, and Tim Lodge, Group Finance Director. Participants are requested to dial in at least 5 minutes before the commencement of the call. Details are provided below:

Participant dial in number: +44 (0) 1452 555 566 (UK freephone 0800 694 0257)
Conference ID: 52951895
 
A replay of this call will be available from two hours after the end of the live call, for 7 days until 3 February 2010.
 
Replay dial in number: +44 (0) 1452 55 00 00 (UK freephone 0800 953 1533)
Replay passcode: 52951895 #

For more information contact Tate & Lyle PLC:

Chris McLeish, Director of Investor Relations
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7977 6211 or Mobile: +44 (0) 7919 102 730
 
William Baldwin-Charles, Head of Media Relations
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7626 6165 or Mobile: +44 (0) 7810 151 425

About Tate & Lyle:

Tate & Lyle is a world-leading renewable food and industrial ingredients company, serving a global market from more than 45 production facilities throughout the Americas, Europe and South East Asia. Our efficient, large-scale manufacturing plants turn agricultural products, corn and cane sugar, into valuable ingredients for our customers. These ingredients add taste, texture, nutrition and increased functionality to products that millions of people around the world use or consume every day.

Tate & Lyle’s range of leading branded food ingredients includes SPLENDA® Sucralose, PROMITOR™ Dietary Fiber, STA-LITE® Polydextrose, Tate & Lyle Fairtrade Sugar and Lyle's Golden Syrup. Tate & Lyle also produces branded industrial ingredients including Bio-PDO™, Ethylex® and Sta-Lok® paper starches; and staple ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, sugar, ethanol, citric acid and basic starches. In addition to providing a wide range of ingredients our expert sales and product applications teams support customers by providing technical advice and proprietary consumer insight studies.

Tate & Lyle is listed on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol TATE.L. American Depositary Receipts trade under TATYY. In the year to 31 March 2009, Tate & Lyle employed 5,718 people in its subsidiaries and joint ventures, and sales totalled £3.55 billion. http://www.tateandlyle.com.

SPLENDA® is a trademark of McNeil Nutritionals, LLC

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Tate & Lyle (TATE)
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