Introduction Financial highlights Routes to market Chairman’s statement Chief executive’s review Operating review Finance director’s review Directors   For a printer friendly version of this Annual Report website plus PDFs of the rest of the document please visit the PDF download section .		Year to 31 March   2000 1999 % INCREASE Turnover £m 1,426.8 1,315.3 8.5 Operating profit £m 230.4 173.9 32.5 Profit before tax and exceptional items £m 224.1 182.2 23.0 Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation £m 313.5 244.9 28.0 Earnings per share before exceptional items p 31.5 23.9 31.8 Dividends per share p 12.5 11.55 8.2 Plasterboard sales volumes worldwide, on a like-for-like basis, grew 10%; up 19% including the acquired Scandinavian and Asian businesses. Plaster volumes grew nearly 8% Turnover grew 8.5% to £1.43 billion, up 13% in local currencies Operating profit advanced 32.5% to £230.4 million, with the group sales margin rising almost 3 percentage points to 16.1% Building materials turnover and operating profit rose by 11% and 28% to £1.32 billion and £210 million respectively, and Paperboard sales margin doubled to almost 11% Underlying pre-tax profit advanced 23% to £224.1 million and underlying earnings per share rose 32% to 31.5p Reported profit before tax was 39% higher at £225.6 million (1999 £162.3 million after a net exceptional charge of £19.9 million) Cash generation from operations continued to grow rapidly, with EBITDA increasing 28% to £313.5 million and EBITDA margin rising 3.4 percentage points to 22% A final dividend of 8.25p per share, generating an 8.2% increase in the full year dividend to 12.5p, 2.5 times covered by underlying earnings		TURNOVER UP 8.5% OPERATING PROFIT UP 32% UNDERLYING PBT UP 23% REPORTED PBT UP 39% EBITDA UP 28% UNDERLYING EPS UP 32% FULL YEAR DIVIDEND UP 8.2% Operating profit £ million and return on sales % Underlying results before exceptional items
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