The NWF Group Board is recommending a final dividend of 6.2p per share, to be paid to shareholders on 10 December 2021 (2020: 5.9p) giving a total dividend of 7.2p per share (2020: 6.9p), a 4.3% increase on the prior year. This is the tenth year that the Group has increased the dividend, highlighting continual sustained improvements in performance.
Other fiancial highlights:
• Performance ahead of the market expectations established pre-pandemic. Second highest profit performance on record for the Group; prior year benefitted from a significant fall in the oil price.
• Outperformance in Fuels with strong heating oil demand supported by a cold winter and an increase in home working during the pandemic.
• Strong second half recovery in Food delivering on the anticipated benefits of the new Crewe warehouse, which has been fully utilised.
• Feeds performance impacted by the significant increase in feed commodity prices and reduced management information as a result of the cyber incident.
• Continued effective response to Covid-19:
• All divisions have remained open and operational, providing essential services.
• Continually updated risk assessments across the Group, enabling safe working and meeting customer needs.
• No Government support utilised and no staff furloughed.
• Balance sheet remains in a strong position with net debt to headline EBITDA at 0.3x, highlighting the resilience of the Group and providing significant capacity to support investment driven growth.
• Performance to date in the current financial year has been in line with the Board's expectations.
