12th Mar 2015 09:28
LONDON (Alliance News) - Irish food and agribusiness company Origin Enterprises on Thursday reported lower pretax profit for the first half of its financial year, due to higher costs, as the group said its performance is weighted to the second half.
The company said its pretax profit for the six months to end of January, including associates and joint ventures, was EUR7.6 million, compared to a EUR8.3 million profit a year earlier.
The decline in profit was driven down by higher operating costs and finance costs and by a lower share of profit for Origin from its joint ventures. That offset a rise in revenue for the company to EUR531.6 million from EUR517.6 million, though the company said like-for-like revenue, stripping out currency movements and a boost from the acquisition of Agroscope, fell by 5.4%.
Origin said it will not pay an interim dividend and said its earnings are heavily weighted to the second half of the year, with around 90% of its earnings typically arising in the second half.
"Origin has achieved a solid operating and financial performance during the seasonally quiet first half of the financial year, recording a 7.1% increase in underlying adjusted earnings per share," said Tom O'Mahony, Chief Executive Officer of Origin.
"Our focus is currently concentrated on developing new consolidation opportunities that build upon the group's existing service offer and technology sets. At this stage and with the seasonally more important second half of the financial year to come we are maintaining full year guidance in adjusted diluted earnings per share of 60 cent from the existing business," O'Mahony added.
Shares in Origin were up 0.8% in London to EUR8.516 on Thursday.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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