Swiss bakery group Aryzta has reiterated its full-year earnings guidance after the performance of its business in the US in the first nine months of its fiscal year offset weakness in Europe.
The company said yesterday (5 June) that underlying sales during the first nine months of the year to end-April dropped by 1.1% in Europe.
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However, year-to-date like-for-like sales increased 4.8% on a group-wide basis. Like-for-like sales in the US increased 7% and by 13.6% in Aryzta’s rest of the world division.
Meanwhile, underlying revenue from Origin Enterprises, in which the company holds a 68.8% stake, increased by 6.9%.
“The results reflect the benefit from previous acquisitions and improvement in channel mix. Weak consumer demand in Europe depressed underlying revenue in the period,” CEO Owen Killan said.
Including the impact of currency exchange and acquisitions, total sales rose 5.8% in the nine months to EUR3.08bn (US$3.85bn).
Aryzta said that the impact of political and economic uncertainty in Europe was compounded by the “additional challenge” of pushing price increases through to offset higher costs.
However, the company emphasised the upside it is seeing from its Aryzta Transformation Initiative supply chain revamp and reiterated full-year earnings per share guidance of 338 cents per share.
Kepler Capital Markets analyst Jon Cox reiterated said sales were “in-line” with expectations and reiterated his buy recommendation on the stock.
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