Swiss bakery business Aryzta AG (ARZTY.PK, ARZTF.PK) Tuesday reported a marginal growth in group revenue for the third quarter, amid a challenging Europe.
Total group revenue rose 0.2 percent to 1.18 billion euros with growth in the Food business and a decline of 5.2 percent in the Origin business, an agri-services group focused on integrated agronomy and agri-inputs in the UK, Ireland and Poland.
Revenue grew 3.6 percent in the Food business to 748.6 million euros. Underlying revenue
declined 0.4 percent, while acquisitions provided 4.6 percent growth and currency
movements impacted 0.6 percent.
The company noted that Europe remains challenging, reflecting the weak macro consumer dynamics in the region and widening government austerity measures.
The company's CEO Owen Killian said, ''Revenue growth in Food was a satisfactory 3.6% in the quarter. However, underlying revenue was impacted by some volume loss following price increases in Europe and the discontinuing of Direct Store Distribution (DSD) in the US. Both of these issues were
anticipated in our H1 announcement.''
Aryzta still expects to report underlying earnings per share growth of 5 to 7 percent. The firm anticipates to return to double-digit underlying earnings per share growth in fiscal 2014.
The company said it is focused on becoming customer-centric through the substantial completion of the Transformation Initiative program by July 2014, as well as addressing channel imbalances to improve its strategic positioning.
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