IWP, the international household products group, does not rule out a trade takeover, chief executive, Mr Joe Moran, said yesterday.

Mr Moran, who increased his stake in the group to 11 per cent stake in the current year, said that "if there was a decent offer from anybody to buy out the company, we would have to look at it".

Speaking after the group's a.g.m. in Dublin, Mr Moran said he had not talked to any potential buyers in the last nine months. But he added: "Every venture capital company in Britain had spoken to us before that."

He said any offer would have to be viewed against what IWP could do with the company in the medium term. But he stressed: "I think there are opportunities in the medium term."

With IWP shares trading at €1.70, he said that the company had not produced anything other than nominal growth recently. Current trading was as predicted both for the first half of the year and would be for the full year. "For the half year you will see low to medium growth and in the full year, medium to single digit, and looking forward, to double digit growth after that. In the last three years, in EPS terms, we stagnated or remained constant. Household products had to go through a fundamental change to differentiate it from our competitors. You must get away from the commodity (market) or finish up like some of our competitors, totally at the mercy of the multiples."

A similar restructuring now is taking place in the group's personal care division which now is the biggest supplier of cosmetics in the UK to Asda, Tesco and Superdrug.

"We had to change the management completely. We had disparate companies acting on their own. We said goodbye to a number of people. The results are starting to show. It's on a small growth pattern year-on-year but the results will come through in the second half of the year and the following year."