19th Apr 2016 06:20
LONDON (Alliance News) - Associated British Foods PLC on Tuesday reported growth in profit in the first half if its financial year but slightly lower revenue due to unfavourable foreign exchange rates, but said it no longer expects currency translations to have a "material impact" on its full-year results.
AB Foods, which owns discount fashion retailer Primark, as well as British Sugar, along with agriculture and consumer goods businesses, said its pretax profit in the 24 weeks ended February 27 grew to GBP457 million from GBP213 million in the same period the year before, as it didn't book any exceptional items in the period.
The prior year period suffered from GBP98 million in exceptional items and GBP116 million in losses on the closure of businesses.
Revenue, however, retreated by 2% to GBP6.12 billion from GBP6.25 billion, although this would have grown by 2% on a constant currency basis, AB Foods said.
"Sterling has weakened recently against our major trading currencies. If current rates were to prevail, this would give rise to a currency translation benefit in the second half and we would no longer expect currency translation to have a material impact on our results for the full year," Chairman Charles Sinclair said in a statement.
"The underlying trading outlook for the group for the full year is unchanged," he added.
AB Foods will pay an interim dividend of 10.3 pence per share, which is up 3% year-on-year.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected] @KarolinaAllNews
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