PZ Cussons has revealed that business performance is improving following a challenging period in which profits were hit by the devaluation of the naira in the company’s key market of Nigeria.

The personal care and consumer goods giant issued an update on Thursday indicating that trading stabilized during the financial year ending May 31 2015, with improved performance in Nigeria, the UK, Australia and Indonesia. 

As well as the stabalization of the naira, PZ Cussons attributed its recovery in Nigeria to the launch of new products and ventures.

The statement noted, “In personal care and home care, whilst margins have been affected by commodity products trading in an extremely competitive environment, growth has been achieved in the value add portfolio driven by a significant brand renovation programme. An example of this is Premier, Nigeria’s number one bar soap, launching into the small but growing shower gel category…

“Nutricima has seen good growth in the year driven by the success of its two key brands NuNu and Olympic. The business is now fully owned and consolidated following PZ Cussons’s buy-out of the joint venture partner on 1 April. 

“The palm oil joint venture with Wilmar has performed very well with good growth achieved in the consumer brands.”

PZ Cussons also revealed that trading in Ghana and Kenya is in line with expectations.

In Europe, the UK market has performed well as a result of a re-launch of the Imperial Leather range; the strong performance of Carex Fun Editon hand wash products; and the populatiry of The Original Source range and St Tropez products.

In Asia, the group’s performance has been boosted by the acquisition of organic food brand, five:am, which has performed well alongside baby food brand Rafferty’s Garden.

The company said it will release its final results for the year on July 21.