Global nutrition group Glanbia has reported better than expected profits and revenues for 2021 on the back of strong global consumer demand for its products.
Glanbia said its profit after tax for the 12 months to the end of December rose to €167.4m from €143.8m while its revenues increased by 9.8% to €4.197 billion from €3.823 billion.
During the year the company agreed the disposal of its interest in Glanbia Ireland DAC to Glanbia Co-operative Society Limited for €307m.
Siobhán Talbot, Glanbia's Group Managing Director, said the results were well ahead of expectations at the beginning of 2021.
Ms Talbot said they were driven by strong global consumer demand in Glanbia's areas of nutrition expertise across ingredient solutions and its portfolio of nutrition brands.
"Our robust and effective operational execution delivered an excellent cash performance with 100.2% cash conversion in the year," she added.
Glanbia said that both its Glanbia Performance Nutrition and Glanbia Nutritionals divisions delivered double-digit volume growth and strong price improvement last year compared to 2020.
Revenue at its Glanbia Performance Nutrition division rose by 14.5% to €1.303 billion from €1.138 billion in 2020 with EBITA jumping by 59% to €145.1m from €91.2m.
The company said that demand was driven by both a post Covid-19 market inventory rebuild in the early part of the year and strong underlying consumption trends during the year.
But as in 2021, it noted that pricing action will continue this year to help mitigate the effects of inflation, with price elasticity continuing to be closely monitored.
"The impact of inflation in GPN is expected to be material with year-on-year cost of goods sold inflation of approximately 20% with dairy input costs accounting for nearly 70% of that total," it said.
"Importantly, GPN has secured supply and fixed pricing for 90% of its expected dairy input requirements for 2022 which provides good visibility as well as protection against any further dairy price increases," it added.
Meanwhile, revenues at its Glanbia Nutritionals division rose by 7.8% to €2.894 billion from €2.685 billion.
EBITA was up 6% to €125.5m from €118.4m on the back of volume increases of 18.1%, which offset a pricing decline of 7.7% while acquisitions added 1% growth
Glanbia also said that revenues at its US Cheese operations grew by 4% to €2.016 billion from €1.938 billion in 2020.
The company said that volume growth reflected good demand from customers and the addition of its new US joint venture capacity, which was fully commissioned in the first half of the year.
But it noted that market pricing was volatile throughout the year and averaged at lower levels than 2020 due to the strong prior year comparatives.
The Glanbia board has recommended a final dividend of 17.53 cent per share which brings the total dividend for the year to 29.28 cent per share, up 10% increase on 2020.
"Our clear strategic focus for 2022 and beyond is to drive growth across both GPN and GN as the nutrition partner of choice to our customers and consumers," the Glanbia boss said.
"During 2022, we anticipate the effects of Covid-19 will further abate, however the ongoing impact of cost inflation, especially dairy-related, will need to continue to be actively managed as it was in 2021," Ms Talbot said.
"Based on today's market environment and current expectations for the remainder of the year, we expect adjusted EPS growth for continuing operations of 2% to 8%, constant currency for FY 2022, with growth primarily driven by GN," she said.
"Based on current foreign exchange rates, we expect the reported growth rate to be 5% higher than the constant currency result," she added.
Glanbia also said today that it will start a share buy-back programme of up to €50m, adding that the purpose of the share buyback programme is to reduce its share capital.
Any shares repurchased for this purpose will be cancelled, it said.
Shares in the company were lower in Dublin today today.
