ON TARGET TO ACHIEVE 2009 FULL YEAR EARNINGS GUIDANCE
DIFFICULT FIRST HALF AS EXPECTED
26 August 2009 - Glanbia plc (‘Glanbia’), the international cheese and nutritional ingredients Group, announces its results for the half year ended 4 July 2009. The structure of this announcement reflects revised segmental reporting under the newly applicable accounting standard International Financial Reporting Standard (‘IFRS’) 8, ‘Operating Segments’.
John Moloney, Group Managing Director, said:
“A growing contribution from higher margin businesses and a strategic cost reduction programme have enabled us to counterbalance unprecedented market circumstances and deliver a reasonable set of results despite a very substantial first time loss in Irish Dairy Ingredients.
It has been, without doubt, a difficult six months. The sustained downturn in the global economy led to weakening consumer confidence. In addition, international dairy prices were sharply down on 2008 resulting in a dramatic reduction in dairy product returns and US cheese prices reached historic lows. The expected impact of these challenges led to a revision of earnings guidance for the full year. While we remain cautious in our outlook today, we expect the overall rate of decline to moderate in the second half. Earnings guidance for the full year is unchanged with full year adjusted earnings expected to be 30 to 32 cents per share.
We are pleased with the excellent operational performance throughout the Group and the success to date of a major cost saving programme and we remain confident in the businesses that are central to our growth strategy.”