25 March 2020

McBride plc

COVID-19 Update

McBride plc (the "Group"), the leading European manufacturer and supplier of Contract Manufactured and Private Label products for the domestic Household and professional cleaning and hygiene markets, today provides the following update.

Since early March, the Group has seen order levels across most regions increase for a range of products such as bleach, anti-bacterial and disinfecting sprays and certain dish and laundry cleaning products. At this stage, it is not clear to what extent this demand increase is due to additional end-user consumption or short-term consumer stockpiling. 

The Group's factories remain open and operating at varying levels of production. Our ability to operate at full production is constrained by labour attendance, certain material supplies and, increasingly, distribution challenges for both inbound and outbound materials. At this time excess demand levels are being met for the most part from a combination of inventory and choices of production priorities.

As Europe progressively 'locks down' we may see further restrictions on our ability to operate factories to match demand levels.  We are working on output optimisation through measures such as recruitment of additional labour, customer prioritisation, range simplification and haulage optionality.

Revenue improvements in the short term are likely to be tempered by reduced factory efficiencies, although we expect to see some benefit from lower raw material input costs in the fourth quarter, dependent on activity levels and product mix.  We are actively limiting discretionary spend, postponing or cancelling capital projects and closely monitoring working capital levels.  At this time, and in light of the factors outlined above, we are unable to offer any update on guidance for the current financial year.

The Group has €60m of committed headroom under its RCF arrangements, with its debt/Ebitda ratio at 2.1x at 31 December 2019 compared to a limit of 3.0x.  As part of its prudent management of cash resources, the Group is cancelling the interim payment to shareholders of 0.8p per ordinary share, announced in the recent interim results.  The Board does not expect to provide an update on payments to shareholders before the Group's next scheduled update on 14 July 2020.

Our amazing teams are working tirelessly to ensure we satisfy demand levels and we are grateful for the flexibility our customers and suppliers are affording at this time.  We remain determined to provide our customers and consumers with quality products to deliver hygienic home and work environments. 

For further information please contact:

Note: This announcement contains inside information which is disclosed in accordance with the Market Abuse Regulation which came into effect on 3 July 2016.

-Ends-