Croda International, the Snaith, East Yorkshire-based FTSE 100 specialty chemicals giant, said its 2024 group sales slipped 3.9% to £1.628 billion and profit before tax fell 12.1% to £207.8 million.

2024 dividend increased 1% to £1.10 per share.

Croda CEO Steve Foots said: “2024 was another transitional year, following two years of unprecedented demand in 2021 and 2022, with an industry-wide reset from 2023.

“Consumer Care saw progress in all areas, with another standout performance from Fragrances & Flavours and good growth of New & Protected Products.

“Life Sciences was impacted by the absence of Covid-19 lipids and weak sales into consumer health markets, but better demand in Crop Protection drove an improved performance in the second half year.

“Whilst sales growth was lower than we hoped in a subdued demand environment, proactive actions to rebase costs and drive efficiencies enabled us to deliver profits in line with our guidance.”

Croda International shares are down about 35% for the past 12 months.

Foots added: “Our multi-year programme of actions to make Croda more focused and more efficient is beginning to bear fruit with our adjusted operating margin improving half-on-half and strong free cash flow generation.

“We are accelerating our efforts with an enhanced focus on costs and efficiency which, combined with increased innovation and the growth potential of recent investments, underpin our confidence in delivering earnings growth and improving returns in the future.”

In its outlook, Croda said: “With sales volumes higher in 2024 and price/mix headwinds likely to diminish, we expect both Consumer Care and Life Sciences to grow sales in 2025, and operational efficiencies to largely offset inflation and the incremental costs of investments coming online.

“Overall for 2025, we expect Group adjusted profit before tax to be between £265m and £295m at constant currency.”