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Welcome back after the bank holiday. Things are winding back up slowly in the world of grocery, with no announcements to speak of on the London Stock Exchange today. There also isn’t much scheduled in the financial diary for the coming week, with Tate & Lyle (TATE) full-year results and AG Barr’s annual general meeting pencilled in for Wednesday and Thursday respectively.
Frozen giant Findus Group has released an update for its second quarter, with sales up 2% and EBITDA climbing 17% on a year ago – although no actual figures were shared. Chief executive James Hill said the group had delivered “strong” quarter two results.
He added that Findus was focusing on “commercial basics” to drive market share, underpinned by a cost reduction programme. This approach had resulted in EBITDA growth in all the group’s markets for the first half of the year.
“Our strong UK EBITDA growth has been driven by continued chilled market growth and strong cost performance,” Hill said.
“In Southern Europe, we have achieved very strong top-line and bottom line growth, driven by continued momentum in France and Spain and the successful integration of the Lutosa acquisition in Belgium. The strong recovery in EBITDA in Sweden has been driven primarily by market recovery and price/mix management to recover inflation driven by adverse SEK/USD FX rates. We have also achieved EBITDA growth in Norway and Finland for the first half of the financial year.”
Findus, which employs more than 6,000 staff and generated more than £1.1bn in annual sales, added it was on track to deliver modest growth in net sales and EBITDA for the full financial year ending September 2015, on a constant currency basis.
Morning update
With no action on the stock exchange, there is also little movement in share prices so far this morning. The two big fallers are McColl’s Retail Group (MCLS) and Real Good Food (RGD), down 2.5% to 170.6p and 2% to 43.6p respectively. Independent butchery chain Crawshaw Group (CRAW) – listed on AIM – has climbed 2% to 59.7p.
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