Good Performance From Glanbia as Irish Business Returns to Profit
John Moloney, group managing director of Glanbia.
Glanbia, the international nutritional ingredients and cheese group, has delivered strong top line revenue, profit and margin growth for the six months ended July 3rd 2010 as its Irish dairy ingredients business was restored to profit. Group profit before tax increased 58.4% to Eur60.2m on revenue up 9.7% to Eur1.04b. Revenue from Glanbia’s US Cheese and Global Nutritionals business rose 22.2% to Eur490.6m while revenue from Dairy Ireland grew marginally to Eur542.9m.
Group operating profit increased 38.7% to Eur66.3m helped by a strong recovery and return to profitability in Irish Dairy Ingredients, compared with a significant loss in the same period last year, and a good performance in Global Nutritionals. Group operating margin increased 130 basis points to 6.4%.
“For the full year 2010, US Cheese & Global Nutritionals is expected to deliver reasonable year-on-year growth, underpinned in particular by the performance of Global Nutritionals. In Dairy Ireland, performance will be somewhat mixed with Irish Dairy Ingredients strongly ahead compared with a loss in 2009, Consumer Products behind in the context of a very tough trading environment and Agribusiness marginally ahead of a difficult 2009,” says John Moloney, group managing director of Glanbia.
Glanbia’s international joint ventures and associates are expected to have a good full year, underpinned by a solid performance from Southwest Cheese in the US and Glanbia Cheese in the UK, and an improved operating performance at Nutricima in Nigeria.
While the global economic environment remains uncertain, Glanbia expects to achieve strong revenue, operating profit and margin growth for the full year. Consequently, Glanbia has revised its earnings guidance upwards and is now expecting approximately 20% adjusted earnings per share growth for the full year.
