º£½ÇÊÓƵ

Agricultural business NWF has revealed a drop in revenue and profits - but said the overall performance had been "in line" with expectations.

The Cheshire-based firm announced on Tuesday half-year results for the period ending November 30, which saw revenues dip from £348.9m to £309.4m, while operating profit fell from £3.5m to £3m - declines of 11.3% and 14.3% respectively.

Net debt rose from £33.5m to £42.5m - up 26% for the food and fuel distributor.

Despite the declining figures, the firm said it had showed resilience during the period, with "consistent" trading despite Brexit uncertainty and challenges caused by the Covid pandemic.

It said the financial position remained "very strong", and it will now pursue continued investment and further acquisition opportunities in its fuels division.

Richard Whiting, chief executive, said: "We had a solid first half with trading in line with our expectations and those for the full year remain unchanged. This performance is a further demonstration of the resilience of the group, which given the challenges of keeping our people safe, managing demand volatility and responding to a cyber incident have demonstrated our teams' strong capabilities.

"We remain confident in our growth potential and our strong financial position gives us the flexibility and capacity to continue to target development opportunities."

The group said the cyber incident at the end of October, which cost the company £500,000, had been "successfully contained" and had not impacted trading or commercial performance.

Finally, the statement said all divisions fully operational in current lockdown, with employees designated as key workers and no significant change in demand levels.