Food group Glanbia has reported pre-tax profits of just over €100m for last year, though this included one-off charges linked to restructuring costs and the company's exit from the pigmeat business.
When these were stripped out, pre-tax profits showed an increase of almost 21% to €120.3m. Revenue was almost flat at just over €2.2 billion and adjusted earnings per share rose by 18.5% to 35.86 cent. A 7% higher full-year dividend of 6.51 cent is being paid.
Managing director John Moloney said all of its businesses performed in line with or better than expectations, except the Irish food ingredients division, which suffered a sharp decline in profits and margins.
He added that 2009 would be a tough year, with world dairy markets weakening further, and the Irish food ingredients business would break even. Overall, he targeted low to mid single digit percentage growth in earnings in 2009.
Mr Moloney told RTE radio it now costs dairy farmers 26 cent to produce a litre of milk, and because of the downturn in the dairy market, the farmers face the prospect of being paid less than that per litre.
Mr Maloney said he believed Glanbia's main milk processing businesses will 'operate at break-even' in 2009. The group takes a medium-term view that milk production in Ireland can look forward to expansion in future. He said that dairy was one of the areas of agriculture where Ireland had a clear competitive advantage and it would contribute to economic growth in the future.
A breakdown of the 2008 results show that Glanbia's share of revenue from joint ventures rose by almost 5% to €370m, with strong growth in Southwest Cheese in the US. Profits from these rose to €7.3m.
In the international division, which includes Food Ingredients Ireland, revenue rose by 6% to almost €1.5 billion, but profits fell 3% to €82.5m.
In the Irish consumer foods division, revenue fell 7.5% to €743m, affected by its exit from the pigmeat business, but profits jumped 68% to €51.5m.
Glanbia also announced that deputy managing director and finance director Geoff Meagher would retire from the board in June. Siobhán Talbot will replace him as finance chief.
Glanbia shares jumped 29 cent to closed at €2.13 in Dublin this evening - up almost 16%.
