British chemicals company Croda has reported a 3.4 percent growth in sales for 2015 to £1.08bn, thanks to a strong focus on innovation and investments.

Underlying sales growth, excluding the benefits from Inotec, a Dutch seed research company acquired in December for €155m, was up 3.7 percent. The growth capped six successive quarters of underlying sales growth. Adjusted pre-tax profit was £254.7m, compared with £235.4m in 2014.

Steve Foots, Croda’s Chief Executive, said, “2015 has been a year of strong progress for Croda. A relentless focus on innovation, improved proximity to our customers and investment in fast growth markets has delivered record reported sales and pre-tax profit, together with a special dividend to shareholders. Looking ahead, whilst we expect market conditions to remain challenging, our strong innovation pipeline and the benefits of our customer-led investment in capacity mean that we are confident of delivering continued progress in 2016.”