LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Masonry product manufacturer Forterra issued a trading update for the year to 31 December on Friday, saying that in the last two months of the year, it continued to see good levels of activity from the major housebuilders and also from merchants as the excess brick inventory levels built up in the supply chain continued to reduce.
The London-listed firm said brick sales volumes were ahead of prior year for both months and also for the year as a whole.

Based on that, full year operating profit was anticipated to be in line with management's expectations.

Strong cash generation and improved working capital flows in the last quarter resulted in net debt of approximately £93m at 31 December 2016, giving a net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio of less than 1.5x.

"This represents significant deleveraging in less than a year and compares with 2.2x at IPO," Forterra's board said in a statement.

"We are continuing to invest in the business in line with our strategy, and the improvement projects previously announced at our brick facilities at Desford and Claughton have commenced."

Annual results for the financial year ended 31 December will be announced on 15 March, its board confirmed.

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