DSM has reported sales up by 5% for its fourth quarter and for its full financial year at €2,377 million and €9,618 million respectively. Nutrition sales were ahead by 12% for the full year at €1,038 million and 14% up for the year at €4,195 million.
EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) was up by 18% for the full year and 30% up for the fourth quarter at €1,314 million and €316 million.
In Q4, DSM said that all clusters delivered a solid performance despite negative exchange rate effects. Nutrition was in addition impacted by a combination of unrelated market headwinds. These included weakness in dietary supplements and fish oil based Omega-3 markets in the US, soft demand in Western food and beverage markets, and price pressures especially in vitamin E following weak demand in animal feed markets earlier in the year. DSM previously signalled these adverse conditions, but the impact through the end of the year was more pronounced than anticipated.
“We achieved significant strategic progress in 2013, also demonstrated by an 18% increase in full year EBITDA and strong cash generation,” said Feike Sijbesma, CEO/chairman of the DSM Managing Board. “We were pleased with the strong performance in Materials Sciences in Q4. Despite the moderate Q4 results in Nutrition, due to currencies and market weakness, DSM’s market positions remained strong. This business with its broad, global offering across the value chain is well positioned to benefit from the structural megatrends, with the need to nourish a growing and aging global population, living increasingly in urban areas, paying more attention to health and well-being. This will continue to drive increased demand for nutritional ingredients.”
“We remain firmly on track to deliver on our strategy and to create sustainable value with all our clusters. Therefore we propose a dividend increase of 10%. In the short term our focus will continue on the operational performance of our businesses, supported by our Profit Improvement Program and intensified R&D and innovation programs.”
