22nd Sep 2014 11:23
LONDON (Alliance News) - Finsbury Food Group PLC Monday reported a higher pretax profit for its last financial year, after it said a strong first half offset higher input costs in the second half and a slight fall in revenue.
The maker of cake and bread bakery goods said a lower cost of sales pushed up its margin and gross profit, resulting in a pretax profit of GBP6.5 million for the 52 weeks to June 28, an 18% increase on the GBP5.5 million profit it reported a year earlier.
Finsbury Food said the second half of the year was more challenging than the first, as commodity price inflation caused chocolate, butter, energy and labour costs to increase.
Revenue during the year declined slightly to GBP175.7 million from GBP176.6 million the prior year, hit by a fall in sales from its UK bakery business and overseas.
Sales of Finsbury Foods' own label products account for around 60% of its total revenue, with the remainder coming from other licensed brands including Disney celebration cakes and Nestle and Thortons PLC confectionery.
The company declared a total dividend of 1.00 pence per share for the year, a 33% increase on last year.
"We have good momentum slightly disguised by a poor market, underlining yet again our ability to achieve consistent results under demanding conditions. The group is now focused on driving growth for the business and shareholders through appropriate M&A [mergers & acquisitions] whilst not losing sight of driving growth in the core business," said Chief Executive John Duffy in a statement.
The company said it spent a total of GBP6.2 million on capital investment during the year, 48% more than the GBP4.2 million in spent on investments the year before that.
During the year, Finsbury Food said it invested in a single serve cake slice 'snap pack', as well as a huge cake bites robotic picking installation, and expansion in its speciality bread facility at Nicholas and Harris.
Finsbury Food shares were trading 0.1% higher Monday early afternoon at 62.55 pence.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; [email protected]; @rharrisdoughty
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