The Synthomer Board has recommended a final ordinary dividend of 6.9p (2018: 8.5p) per share. Taken with the 2019 interim ordinary dividend of 4.0p (2018: 3.7p) per share, the total ordinary dividend is 10.9p (2018: 12.2p). The total dividend for the year is consistent with the Group's dividend policy. The final dividend per share is subject to shareholder approval at the Annual General Meeting on 29 April 2020 and will be payable on 7 July 2020 to those shareholders registered at the close of business on 5 June 2020.
Other financial highlights include:
Resilient performance in a challenging market
- EBITDA3 1.7% lower at £177.9m (2018: £181.0m). All markets showed growth, with the exception of Performance Elastomers SBR markets, both including and excluding the benefit of IFRS16 Leases
- Underlying operating profit 11.5% lower at £125.8m (2018: £142.1m), and IFRS operating profit 14.1% lower at £110.6m (2018: 128.7m)
- Record return on R&D investment with 22% of sales volumes from new products launched in the past five years (2018: 21%)
Underlying Earnings per share5: 25.3p (2018: 30.7p)
Strong Free Cash Flow of £92.8m (2018: £27.8m)
2020 profit growth attributable to
- Highly complementary acquisition of OMNOVA Solutions Inc, bringing synergies, increased speciality products, and step change expansion into North America and China expected to complete March 2020
- Largely complete major capex expansion programme providing additional low-cost capacity to accelerate volume growth
- Transformation and self-help programmes in place, with extensive review of European SBR asset network options nearing completion
