Health care company Reckitt Benckiser (RB) is experiencing a mild cold season. Because fewer people got cold or flu complaints, the British group behind the sore throat tablets of the Strepsils brand grew more slowly than in previous periods.
In the three months to June, RB posted a turnover of 3.1 billion pounds. On a like-for-like basis, ie adjusted for the effect of currency exchange rates and the sale of parts, revenues grew 2.2 percent in the second quarter. That was 4.1 percent in the first three months of the year.
The fact that there was less demand for self-medication against colds is also due to hoarding behaviour last year. In the spring of 2020, people massively stocked up on RB tablets and cough syrup, and that growth is hard to top. Dettol disinfectant was also sold less often than during the peak last year, but demand is still 40 percent higher than two years ago.
Due to the sharp rise in raw material prices, a problem that also affects its peer Unilever, the adjusted profit margin of the company shrank in the first half of the year.
That margin does not include the recent sale of a Chinese baby food subsidiary. RB suffered a significant book loss on the sale of IFCN China, as a result of which the group closed 1.8 billion pounds in the red in the first six months of the year. As a result, the company does not provide profit or loss figures for the second quarter.