August 14, 2012
The Age
Food company Goodman Fielder has posted another full-year loss and says challenging trading conditions in the baking and spreads sector will continue.
Goodman Fielder on Tuesday posted a net loss of $146.9 million for the year to June 30, but it’s a 12 per cent improvement on the previous year’s $166.7 million loss.
The result was hurt by $267.2 million in pre-tax charges related to a major company restructure, plus write-downs on its Australian and New Zealand baking business and NZ home ingredients arm.
Normalised profit, which takes out one-off financial items, was $96.5 million in the year to June, down 29 per cent on $135.2 million in the previous year.
Goodman Fielder makes bread, spreads and supplies edible fats and oils to other manufacturers.
Its brands include White Wings and Meadow Lea.
The company’s restructure involved 600 redundancies and bakery closures.
Chief executive Chris Delaney today said trading conditions in Australia and New Zealand remained challenging and had impacted on the company’s underlying performance.
Conditions in the 2012/13 financial year were likely to be similar, and competitive pressures were set to continue, he said.
No financial guidance was provided.
Mr Delaney said the group’s restructure progress had been strong and remained on track to achieve $100 million in annual savings by the 2014/15 financial year.
The program’s cost, including redundancies, in the year to June was $46 million.
AAP
Subscribe to our free mailing list and always be the first to receive the latest news and updates.