9th Aug 2018 10:22
LONDON (Alliance News) - Kerry Group PLC said Thursday its profit increased marginally in the first half of the year as currency translation eroded revenue growth.
In the six months ended June 30 the Irish food company recorded a pretax profit of EUR258.7 million, a marginal 0.8% increase from EUR256.6 million the year before.
The main cause was Kerry's revenue, which grew just 1.4% to EUR3.23 billion from EUR3.18 billion as it suffered a 6.6% hit from currency translation.
The company's trading profit, meanwhile, experienced a 8.2% negative impact from currency translation during the period, a substantial change from just 0.6% the year before.
Intangible asset amortization also had its impact and came to EUR27.6 million, 22% higher than the EUR22.6 million recorded the previous year.
Despite these negative factors, the company declared an 11% rise in its interim dividend per share to 21.0 euro cents from 18.8 cents.
"Evolving consumer trends and the changing marketplace have provided increased opportunities and demand for Kerry's...portfolio. This, along with the group's enhanced end-use market focus, drove healthy volume growth and underlying margin expansion in the first half of 2018. We also continued to make progress with and invest in business development initiatives aligned to our strategic growth priorities," said Kerry Chief Executive Edmond Scanlon.
The Irish company's previous 2018 guidance was for adjusted earnings growth for the year of between 6% and 10% per share on a constant currency basis. However, this has been narrowed upwards.
"We update our guidance and now expect to achieve growth in adjusted earnings per share of 7% to 10% in constant currency," Scanlon added.
Shares in Kerry Group were up 1.3% at EUR93.05 per share on Thursday.
Related Shares:
Kerry