Frutarom’s (Haifa, Israel) sales increased 9.9% to $108.5 million, and net profit rose 24.1% to $7.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. Full-year sales fell 10.2% (in US dollar terms) compared to 2008, totaling $425.2 million. The company in part credited strengthening European currencies and the NIS against the US dollar for the sales growth in the most recent period. Results from the former Oxford, FSI and savory activities of Christian Hansen contributed $8.1 million to Q4 sales, and $25.3 million to the full year sales.
Of the results, CEO Ori Yehudai, said, “2009 was characterized by a relative slowdown in the markets, whose origin is in the global economic crisis. We entered this challenging and crisis-related period as a leading and strong global company, with a solid capital structure and an experienced global management ... acted to strengthen our competitiveness and improve our operational efficiency while tightly reducing and controlling our expense level and while continuing to strengthen our R&D and sales infrastructures to ensure the continuation of our rapid profitable growth. We estimate that the stabilization of the global economy in recent months ... will contribute to an improvement in our sales level and to future return to a growth trend at rates similar to those characterizing our activities in the past. We will continue decisively to act to implement our rapid growth strategy, combining organic growth and strategic acquisitions. The excellent cash flow we achieve, our solid capital structure and support we receive from leading financial institutions, will enable us to continue our rapid profitable growth strategy and again double our sales turnover within the next four years, to approximately $ 1 billion."
