10th Sep 2014 09:59
LONDON (Alliance News) - Household and personal-care products company McBride PLC swung to a considerable loss in its last financial year, hit by promotional activity in the UK, weaker demand in Europe, declining market share, and a number of restructuring costs and impairments
McBride, known for cleaning brands including Ovenpride and Limelite, posted a pretax loss of GBP21.3 million for the financial year ended June 30, compared with a profit of GBP9.0 million the prior year.
The company said it swung to a loss after booking GBP34.5 million in exceptional costs, mostly from a goodwill impairment in the UK, as well as reorganisation and restructuring costs.
McBride said trading since the year end has been in line with expectations, but its challenges remain the same: deep discount promotional activity in the UK, competitive pricing pressure, and declining demand in Europe.
"Our principal objective for the forthcoming year is to improve profitability in the UK, whilst driving strong profitable growth in Central and Eastern Europe...The scale of this improvement remains dependent on the extent of branded promotional activity and demand in the UK retail sector," the company said in a statement.
Revenue declined by 3% in the year on a constant currency basis and 2% on a reported basis to GBP744.2 million, down from GBP761.4 million a yea earlier, mainly due to the withdrawal from low-margin contract manufacturing and private-label businesses in 2013.
In the UK, revenue declined by 10%, hit by deep discounted branded promotional activity throughout most of the year. In France, revenue grew slightly, whilst in Italy, revenue was down 12% on a constant currency basis.
"In the UK, the decline in revenue was driven by the effect of branded promotional activity. In Western Europe, revenue increased due to continued strong growth in Germany derived from business wins, which was partly offset by a decline in performance in Italy due to the Italian retail environment. Rest of the World reported increased revenues due to growth in Poland," the company said.
McBride shares were down 0.1% at 88.90 pence mid-morning Wednesday.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; [email protected]; @rharrisdoughty
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