Glanbia shares fall 6% despite profit goal
Shares in Glanbia tumbled by 6% even as the international food firm reiterated it is on track to hit its growth target this year.
In an interim management statement, Glanbia group managing director Siobhán Talbot said major divisions Glanbia Nutritionals and Glanbia Performance Nutrition had performed well in the first three months of the year, helped by acquisitions.
“Glanbia Nutritionals was the main driver of revenue growth with a good performance in particular from the Nutritional Solutions business. Glanbia Performance Nutrition revenue growth in the first quarter was driven by a strong performance from the recently acquired SlimFast brand,” she said.
Our strategy remains on track and we reiterate our full year guidance of 5% to 8% growth in adjusted earnings per share, constant currency, in 2019, with growth to be delivered in the second half of the year,” she said.
However, investors appeared to be put off as the firm said revenue increases, excluding dollar exchange rate changes, were driven by “volume growth of 1.4%, acquisitions of 9.7% offset by a price decline of 2.7%”.
The shares have nonetheless risen 16.5% in the past year, to value Glanbia at over €4.8bn.
Broker Davy said the first-quarter review “reflects a strong performance in Nutritional Solutions, offset by a double-digit decline in Global Performance Nutrition — its first quarterly fall since Q1 2017”.
It predicted that the firm’s “profit delivery” would be skewed to the second half of the year but it sees “no material changes” to its full-year earnings-per-share forecast.
