CCL reports profit increase

CCL, the Toronto-based label converting group, has reported full-year sales of CA$1.3bn (£805m) for 2011, up 6.4 percent on 2010. EBITDA profit figures rose 8.8 percent to CA$239m.

CCL president and chief executive Geoffrey Martin said that sales across all the business’s geographic regions in 2011 had contributed to the performance, although last year’s floods in Thailand hit demand for labels and held back fourth-quarter profits. CCL’s Sleeve and Healthcare & Speciality divisions were said to be particularly strong.

‘Although global economic uncertainty remains, we are cautiously optimistic about the company’s prospects for profitable growth in 2012,’ said Martin. ‘Demand levels in emerging markets are expected to continue outpacing those in North America and Europe as our performance mirrors the experience of our large global customers.

He said that order levels had been ‘solid so far in 2012, including Europe, despite the on-going sovereign debt crisis in the region’.

Martin added: ‘We do expect to see raw material inflation stabilize and potentially reverse in some commodity categories.’

In the figures, sales for the group’s CCL Label division passed CA$1bn for the first time, while the overall figures were boosted by a particularly strong fourth quarter, which showed a year-on-year sales increase of 12.8 percent, with a 15.2 percent uplift in EBITDA profit.

Click here for more stories about CCL on L&L.com.