Plant Health Care's sales shoot up

26th May 2011 15:26

Trading in the first half to date at Plant Health Care has been in line with expectations, with the group seeing an uplift in sales of over 20% compared with the same period in 2010.The agricultural plant care, soil and water management products group said that this has been helped by strong performances in Europe and Mexico. As a result of ceasing the 'early order programme' to boost higher margin sales, the firm has seen a 4% improvement in gross margin compared with 2010.Additionally, operating expenditure has fallen by 7%, causing losses (at the earnings level) to be reduced by around 20%."Plant Health Care is currently in discussions on a significant number of potential agreements with major international agri-chemical businesses and seed distribution companies, in the US, Europe, Africa and Asia," the statement said. Several of these discussions are said to be at an advanced stage.---BC