Glanbia upbeat despite woes at consumer products unit

Food group Glanbia said it was positive about its full year outlook after a good performance in the first nine months of the year from its two core global businesses offset a challenging time for its Irish consumer products business.The Ireland-based company said it expected to deliver 2013 underlying earnings growth of about 10% which is at the upper end of its previous guidance.It comes after group revenues rose 14% in the nine months to October 5th against the same period last year thanks to 9% growth in volumes and 5% increase in prices. Its global performance nutrition division delivered a 19% increase in revenues while its global ingredients arm lifted revenues by 14% in the same period.However, its consumer products division had a "challenging" time as milk input costs rose and the Irish retail environment remained difficult. It has started a restructure to cut costs but it will not feel the benefit of this in 2013 and as a result the company said it expected the division's results for this year to be significantly below those of 2012. The cost of the unit's reorganisation is expected to be between €14m and €18m this year. However, this will be offset by a one-off pension related credit of €13m. Shares jumped 4.66% to €10.10 at 09:44 on Tuesday. TB