(Alliance News) - Greencore Group PLC on Tuesday reported a swing to loss despite revenue rising by 20% as it launched its third share buyback programme since May last year.
The Dublin-based convenience foods maker said revenue for the 26 weeks ended on March 31 was up 20% to GBP925.8 million from GBP770.8 million the year before.
Greencore said overall manufactured volume growth including new businesses, delivered 5.0% of this growth in the period.
In particular, Food to go revenue increased by 16%, and other convenience categories' revenue rose by 29%.
However, it swung to a pretax loss of GBP6.2 million from a profit of GBP10 million, as group operating profit fell 50% to GBP3.6 million from GBP7.2 million the year before.
Finance costs widened to GBP10.2 million from GBP6.2 million.
Chief Executive Officer Dalton Philips said: "We are pleased to have delivered strong revenue growth in the seasonally quieter first half of the year, and it is a clear demonstration of Greencore's ongoing resilience in what is a difficult consumer spending environment. While much of the top line momentum has been driven by recovery of inflation, it is encouraging to have achieved good manufactured volume growth, which speaks to the enduring structural demand for the categories in which we operate."
Looking ahead, the company said it is well-placed to "mitigate the majority of the remaining expected in-year commodity inflation together with the lag in recovery from the first half and is progressing well in this regard". It expects annual results to be in line with current market expectations.
Furthermore, Greencore also intends to re-start a GBP50 million share buyback programme launched in May last year. To date, it has returned GBP25 million in capital.
The firm said it entered into non-discretionary arrangements with Goodbody Stockbrokers UC to buy back shares for up to GBP10 million. Greencore said the buyback will start on Tuesday and end no later than September 29.
Shares were up 4.5% at 79.20 pence each on Tuesday morning in London.
By Xindi Wei, Alliance News reporter
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Greencore (GNC)