(Alliance News) - Glanbia PLC on Wednesday reported a decline in annual pretax profit as Covid-19 restrictions disrupted international markets and North American channels.
For its financial year ended January 2, the Irish dairy products producer posted a EUR154.1 million pretax profit, down 23% from EUR199.1 million the year before.
Revenue slipped 1.5% to EUR3.82 billion from EUR3.88 billion.
Managing Director Siobhan Talbot said: "[Glanbia Performance Nutrition] was impacted by Covid-19 related restrictions which caused significant disruption to International markets and the North American specialty and distributor channels. However we maintained our focus on the key transformation programme with revenue and margin trends both improving in the second half of the year."
Talbot added: "A good start to 2020 was severely impacted by Covid-19 in the second quarter but improved market conditions and focused actions drove a sequential improvement in earnings in the second half of 2020."
Glanbia declared a final dividend of 15.94 euro cents, keeping the total for 2020 in line with the prior year at 26.62 cents.
In 2021, Glanbia expects to achieve 6% to 12% adjusted earnings per share growth at constant currency thanks to Glanbia Performance Nutrition and Glanbia Nutritionals. Adjusted earnings per share fell 15% on a constant currency basis in 2020 to 73.78 cents from 88.10 cents.
Talbot commented: "We anticipate that 2021 will see consumers continue to focus on health and wellbeing: prioritising functional nutrition including immunity enhancing products; maintaining a healthy weight; and supplementing protein-rich foods to support performance and healthy lifestyle goals. This positions Glanbia very well for the future given our core focus on nutrition, health and wellbeing."
Shares in Glanbia were down 4.5% at EUR9.91 in London on Wednesday morning.
By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com
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Glanbia (GLB)