Earnings fall 17% at cement maker Mannok

Soaring costs cut earnings at cement and packaging maker Mannok by 17 per cent to €25.8 million last year, the company said on Thursday.

Formerly known as Quinn Industrial Holdings, Mannok, which makes building materials and food packaging, reported that sales grew 16 per cent to €270 million last year from €233 million in 2020.

Earnings before interest, tax and write-offs, a measure of the cash a business generates, fell 17 per cent to €25.8 million in 2021 from €31.1 million the previous year.

The company blamed last year’s sharp rises in energy, carbon credit and raw materials costs for the fall in earnings.

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Mannok said its energy bill increased 66 per cent while a temporary shortage in raw materials hit its insulation business.

At the same time, carbon credit costs rose to more than €80 a tonne at the year’s end from €33 a tonne.

Demand, recovering the increased cost from customers and levelling energy boosted profits in the opening months of 2022, the company said.

Liam McCaffrey, Mannok’s chief executive, described this year’s outlook as positive.

He added that “lean production” combined with investment of €78.5 million in recent years eased the consequences of rising costs.

Carbon

Mannok plans to spend €200 million cutting one-third of its greenhouse gas output by 2030 and on reaching “net zero” carbon, where it offsets any emissions, by 2050.

“What these cost pressures in 2021 show is that decarbonising our operations is a commercial, as well as an environmental, imperative,” said Mr McCaffrey.

Mannok will decarbonise its fleet of vehicles, and develop and use wind, solar and hydrogen to power its manufacturing plants.

The group employs 800 people in operations in counties Cavan and Fermanagh, straddling the Border between the Republic and the North. It sells most of its products in Ireland and Britain.