(Reuters) - Essentra Plc (L:ESNT), a supplier of speciality plastic and packaging components, warned of lower full-year adjusted operating profit, citing challenging market conditions in filter products and delays in some large projects.
Essentra's shares slumped 22.5 percent in early trade on the London Stock Exchange.
The company, whose filter products are used in tobacco, health and personal care and consumer goods, said it expects adjusted operating profit to be between 155 million pounds and 165 million pounds for the year ended Dec. 31, 2016, compared with 171.5 million pounds ($248.8 million) last year.
Revenue is expected to be broadly unchanged from the 1.09 billion pounds it reported last year, Essentra said.
Filter products accounted for about 27 percent of the company's revenue in 2015.
The company, whose products range from cigarette filters to adhesives, said site integration in health and personal care packaging had resulted in some short-term operational issues in both the US and the UK, hurting revenue and operating profit.
Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire-based Essentra said it was unlikely to achieve trading levels expected at the time of its full year 2015 results announcement in February.
The company had said then that it was confident of continuing its track record of "balanced profitable growth" in 2016, driven by international markets and its wide product mix.
Essentra, which was formed after being demerged from Bunzl Plc (L:BNZL) in June 2005, gets roughly half its sales from Europe, about a third from the Americas and the rest from Asia.
The company said on Thursday that its second-half profit would be stronger than that for the first half of 2016. Essentra reports its first-half results on July 29.