IMI plc Annual General Meeting - 17 May 2002
IMI plc, the major international engineering Group, held its 2002 Annual General Meeting at 12 noon today. At the meeting Gary Allen, Chairman, commented:
"Our results for 2001 reflected operationally the demanding market conditions and strategically our determination to restructure and reposition IMI.
In our major markets, the US downturn was evident throughout the year and Europe declined markedly in the second half. All our businesses were managed robustly with strong emphasis on delivering cash. Despite lower underlying volumes and reduced profit we produced operating cash flow of £182m (before rationalisation and restructuring costs) an increase of £22m over the previous year.
As a result of the strategy review, we embarked on a major restructuring of the Group, requiring changes of both the portfolio and the operations of the retained businesses.
The portfolio restructuring made steady progress with £45m spent on acquisitions and £53m realised from disposals. Those businesses currently within Building Products which have been earmarked for future disposal, produced good profit and cash in 2001. So far this year, these businesses overall have continued to perform well, particularly Polypipe.
Changes to our operations are being made through an £80m programme of rationalisation and restructuring with the focus on reducing our operational cost base and improving our market-facing infrastructure. We had committed £45m to these measures by the end of 2001, and expect the balance of £35m to be substantially concluded by the end of this year. The benefits arising from these initiatives to date are in line with our expectations. Half of the savings arising from this restructuring will be reinvested to stimulate future growth.
The interim dividend paid in October 2001 was maintained at 6.0p and the Board is recommending the payment of an unchanged final dividend of 9.5p, making a total of 15.5p for the year.
In the current year to date, trading has generally been much as anticipated. Volumes have started to recover from the lows of the fourth quarter of last year and there is more quotation and enquiry activity. It is too early to judge the extent to which this will impact on volume improvements later in the year. We reported in March that cost savings arising from the restructuring were coming through strongly and I am pleased to report that this trend is continuing.
It is our intention to issue a trading update on June 20 in which we will comment in more detail on current trading."
- ENDS -
For further information please contact
IMI plc
Graham Truscott,
Corporate Communications
0121 356 4848
Weber Shandwick
Square Mile
Ben Padovan
020 7950 2800
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