(Alliance News) - Irish dairy products producer Glanbia PLC on Thursday announced its intention to launch a EUR50 million share buyback program, as it reported a slight rise in year-to-date revenue on improving trends, despite challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.
For the nine months ended October 3, the company recorded a 1.0% rise in revenue year-on-year. The improvement was attributed to price growth of 4.8%, offset by a volume decline of 1.7%. Acquisitions delivered 0.6% revenue growth year-to-date.
Price growth reflected strong cheese markets in the period in Glanbia Nutritionals division. Volume decline was in the Glanbia Performance Nutrition business, primarily as a result of Covid-19, Glanbia said.
For the fourth quarter of 2020, the company expects the Glanbia Nutritionals division and joint ventures to continue to deliver a resilient earnings performance in addition to further sequential improvement in Glanbia Performance Nutrition.
"Good operating cash flow is expected to continue in the fourth quarter with net debt to adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation ratio anticipated to be below two times by year-end," the company added.
The EUR50 million share buyback program was attributed to "strong cash flows" by Glanbia, providing an opportunity to allocate capital to benefit shareholders.
Glanbia also said that John Daly will step down as independent non-executive director with effect from November 1, and Mary Minnick will step down as director on December 31.
Jane Lodge and Roisin Brennan will join the board as independent non-executive directors effective from the start of November 2020 and January 2021, respectively.
Lodge is a former senior audit partner of accountancy firm Deloitte. She currently sits on boards of DCC PLC, Costain Group PLC and Bakkavor Group PLC.
Brennan is a former chief executive officer of IBI Corporate Finance Ltd and has over 20 years of investing banking experience, particularly advising public companies in Ireland. She is currently a director of Ryanair Holdings PLC, Hibernia REIT PLC, Musgrave Group PLC and Dell Bank International DAC.
Shares in Glanbia were up 5.5% at EUR8.22 in London on Thursday morning.
By Tapan Panchal; tapanpanchal@alliancenews.com
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