Greencore shares continued their strong run this week after the own-label supplier reported a 7.7% jump in full-year like-for-like sales.
As well as growing the business by winning new contracts with Waitrose and Aldi in the UK and Starbucks in the US, Greencore had a busy year integrating Uniq, selling a poor performing desserts facility to Müller and buying up two suppliers in the US and one in the UK. It also moved its primary listing from Dublin to London.
Its shares rose 3% this week to 93.5p, having already risen 25% over the past year.
Analysts were impressed by the speed of the integration of Uniq, which the company said was “largely completed”, as well as its strong like-for-like sales growth. “Greencore has delivered a strong result from its base business and completed the integration of Uniq, delivering synergies earlier than expected,” said Investec analyst Nicola Mallard.
Shares in pork products group Cranswick also had an excellent week, jumping 10% on Monday to 812.5p. News that price negotiations with retailers had been successful sent shares skyrocketing, even though the company’s 21% increase in half-year pre-tax profits to £22.5m was below some analyst forecasts.
From a high of almost 860p at the start of August, Cranswick’s shares dropped to under 740p in October as fears spread that the company could be stung by a sharp increase in pig prices.
“The fact that Cranswick has successfully managed to secure price increases from the retailers should be well received, and allows us to overlook the slight miss to our first-half forecasts,” said Panmure analyst Damian McNeela.
There was also good news from Marks & Spencer. It revealed the size of its pension deficit had shrunk from £1.3bn in 2009 to £290m, prompting it to halve annual cash contributions from £60m a year to £28m a year. The news pushed shares up 2% to 387p on Wednesday.
But it wasn’t such a good week for Britvic. The company revealed on Tuesday the full cost of its Fruit Shoot recall would be at the upper end of its £15m to £25m forecast. It said it had already incurred costs of £16.9m this financial year, and reported a 16.5% drop in full-year EBITA to £115.6m, sending shares below 400p.
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