Novozymes has strong first half
Raises full-year expectations as a result
Higher demand in its enzyme business in the first half of the year helped Danish firm Novozymes to increase sales by 15% to DKK4.8bn (€644m). EBIT was DKK1.1bn (€148m), up 38% compared with the first six months of 2009.
‘Demand was high in the enzyme business and all industries grew double digit, if you look at the second quarter in isolation,’ said Novozyme’s chief executive Steen Riisgaard.
He added: ‘Earnings continued to benefit from high productivity improvements, better capacity utilisation and tight cost management.’
However, he warned that the first half is normally the easier half and there is still some uncertainty as to how markets will develop in the second half.
‘Despite this uncertainty, with the strong first-half results in the enzyme business and a slightly more favourable currency outlook, we are increasing our expectations for the full year,’ said Riisgaard.
All of the Copenhagen-based company’s main enzyme business regions grew, as sales increased by 17% to DKK4.4bn (€590m), with detergent and technical enzymes showing the strongest growth. Bio business sales were 2% lower than the first half of 2009 as a result of Novozymes’ sale of non-core activities in its micro-organism business and lower sales of biopharmaceutical ingredients. The firm said the timing of relatively large orders mainly caused the decline in sales in the biopharmaceutical sector.
