Finsbury Food Boosts Dividend Amid Interim Profit And Revenue Growth

19th Mar 2018 10:35

LONDON (Alliance News) - Bakery goods firm Finsbury Food Group PLC hiked its interim dividend on Monday after reporting profit and revenue growth despite a persistently "challenging" UK grocery market.

For the six months ended December 30, pretax profit expanded to GBP8.4 million from GBP7.9 million the year prior. This was after revenue grew to GBP157.8 million from GBP156.6 million the year before.

"Our revenue and profit growth in the period illustrates the group's resilience to what has been a sustained period of market-wide headwinds," Finsbury Chief Executive John Duffy said.

"The investment into the business that we have implemented over this and previous years, alongside a focus on operational excellence has positioned us well and enabled us to continue to deliver robust results. This, alongside the strength of our balance sheet has underpinned our ability to increase our interim dividend," Duffy added.

Finsbury proposed a 1.1 pence per share interim dividend, up 10% from 1.0p the year prior. Net debt fell to GBP16.6 million from GBP21.0 million the year prior.

Duffy cautioned: "The UK grocery market continues to be challenging with food inflation becoming entrenched. As previously noted, this is a result of increased commodity prices, the adverse impact of USD and Euro exchange rates and the annual above inflation increase in the National Living wage. The group is working hard to mitigate this input cost inflation through continued operational efficiency, investment in automation and, inevitably, price increases."

"The headwinds will persist into the period ahead, but we are determined to deliver against our strategic objectives and continue to drive growth both organically and through acquisition," Duffy added. "With our resilient and diversified group, by category, channel and geography, we are confident that we will continue to deliver steady progress in the period ahead."

"Whilst we are cognisant of the price recovery process," Duffy concluded, "we expect the group's steady performance to continue into the second half of the financial year and are confident that we have created a resilient business that can not only withstand the current headwinds but will continue to progress."

Shares in Finsbury were 0.3% higher at 116.39 pence on Monday.

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