Greencore talks up recovery -- despite falling to €10m loss
Wednesday November 25 2009
Pre-tax profits at Irish food group Greencore fell by 57pc as the company swung to an annual loss of €9.9m.
Greencore said it was affected by charges after selling its grain trading and frozen desserts businesses and by the euro's fall against the British pound.
The major food group, which is involved in manufacture and supply of primary foods, food ingredients and prepared foods said that sales fell slightly by 0.8pc to €1.1bn during the year but operating profit in the division's continuing businesses also increased by 14.1pc.
CONVENIENCE
Greencore have said it is on track to deliver modest earnings growth in 2010 and said that it had made a good start to the 2010 financial year, with a continuation of an improving performance in British convenience foods and progress in the US offsetting a weaker performance in malt and higher finance costs.
Commenting on the results, Greencore Group chief executive Patrick Coveney said it had been "a year of real achievement in the face of considerable headwinds".
"Most importantly, we have driven significant performance improvement in our core convenience foods business -- performance that improved with each passing quarter," he said. "In addition, we successfully refinanced our group, reshaped our business portfolio and have embedded a new leadership team at all levels."
The company has declared a final dividend of 4.5 cent per share which will result in a total dividend of 7.5 cent per share.
WEAK
Greencore reported a recovery in its convenience foods division, with sales in continuing businesses of €794.4m ahead of that reported in the 2008 financial year by 2.2pc.
The group said its British business had performed well after a weak first quarter, with most categories delivering good earnings growth year on year.
It also said its US business continued to make headway, almost doubling its contribution to group operating profit year-on-year.
Loss attributable to equity shareholders for the year was €9.90m, compared to net income of €53.41m in the prior year.
