3rd Apr 2014 07:25
LONDON (Alliance News) - McBride Group PLC said Thursday that it is unlikely to meet expectations for the full year, recording a 4% fall in group revenue with its Private Label division taking a hit in the UK and Italy due to the weak retail environment.
Shares in the household and personal-care products company dropped in early trading after it said group revenue at constant currency declined 4% during the period from January 1 to April 2, 2014.
Revenue from its Private Label division dropped 2%, due to the "extraordinarily weak retail environment affecting our customers in UK and Italy, combined with branded promotional activity that has been more extensive than last year," said the company.
MacBride's France/Benelux, Germany and Poland businesses have continued to grow, recording Private Label revenue growth of 1%, 12% and 6%, respectively.
Looking ahead, the firm said market conditions remain unpredictable, and therefore the board believes that it is unlikely that McBride will meet market expectations for the year ending June 2014.
However, the household products firm said it expects an improvement in its fourth quarter, due to a number of planned product launches, but expects that this will still be mitigated somewhat by weak demand in the UK and Italian retail sectors.
In order to target the weakness in sales to its UK customers, the group has been carrying out a strategic review of its UK operations over the last twelve months, which it said is likely to lead to a significant restructuring of activities, including capacity reduction.
In February, the firm said it expected its performance to improve in its second-half, after recording a pretax profit drop in the half-year ended December 31, 2013. McBride posted a pretax profit of GBP3.7 million, down from GBP5.7 million in the previous year as it was hit by exceptional charges of GBP2.6 million in functional reorganisation costs and a GBP400,000 impairment charge as it moved its head office functions to Manchester.
Shares in McBride were trading 12.44% lower at 92.375 pence per share Thursday morning, the second biggest faller on the London market.
By Alice Attwood; [email protected]; @AliceAtAlliance
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