Irish-Swiss bakery giant Aryzta has reported a 0.2 per cent decline in underlying revenue growth, according to a first quarter 2013 trading update, a performance it has described as a ‘sequential improvement’ on recent performance.
When net currency movements are taken into account, revenue at the group’s Food Europe division, which includes Cuisine De France, rose 1.6 per cent to €321 million. Total Food revenue grew by 7.9 per cent to €747.5 million, again boosted by favourable currency movements for the Zurich-based company.
“Our performance during the period was satisfactory, given that the global trading environment remains very challenging and has not improved since our year-end results announcement in September,” Aryzta chief executive Owen Killian said in a statement.
“As previously highlighted, FY 2013 will be another year of substantial transformation and reorganisation for Aryzta. Based on the Q1 performance, we continue to view the outlook and guidance issued with our 2012 full-year results as valid.”
This year, Aryzta is set to complete its ‘Transformation Initiative’, which aims to align its organizational structure to support its ‘customer-centric’ strategy. Group CFO Patrick McEniff is to take on an additional role as Chief Operating Officer as part of the inititative.
Aryzta was formed in 2008 after Swiss bakery group Hiestand and Irish company IAWS merged.
According to Liam Igoe at Goodbody Stockbrokers, “Europe ‘remains very challenging’ for the group and Aryzta’s key focus this year will be on the completion of the Transformation Initiative. To this end, a number of new management changes have been announced to copper-fasten the cross-selling opportunities within the Group. In North America, Aryzta has made a small bolt-on acquisition that ‘will accelerate its transition to fewer larger multi-product facilities in North America’. This has been hinted at by management recently when it was suggested that such deals might be preferred to some of the planned capital investment programme in North America. This should save time in the Transformation process.”
Origin, in which Aryzta has a majority ownership, reported an 11.2 per cent increase in revenue to €351.2 million. (4 Nov)
Source: Checkout Retail Intelligence
