The Freedom Foods Group Ltd (ASX: FNP) share price has jumped 92 cents or almost 23% higher to $4.95 on Friday following the release of its full year results after the market close on Thursday.
How did Freedom Foods perform in FY 2019?
For the 12 months ended June 30, Freedom Foods posted a 34.9% increase in sales to $476.2 million. This was driven by strong sales growth from its key Dairy & Nutritional Ingredients and Plant Based Beverages segments.
The Dairy & Nutritional Ingredients segment continues to be the star of the show, delivering a 79% increase in sales to $249.3 million. Whereas the Plant Based Beverages segment achieved sales growth of 29% to $104.9 million.
And thanks to an improvement in its margins, Freedom Foods reported a 40.9% increase in operating EBDITA to $55.2 million in FY 2019. The catalyst for this was a 110.8% lift in Dairy & Nutritional Ingredients EBDITA and a 45.8% increase in Plant Based Beverages EBDITA.
This ultimately led to the company posting a 40.1% increase in operating net profit to $21.9 million. However, after abnormals and non-cash expenses, statutory net profit fell 9% to $11.6 million.
The Freedom Foods board declared an unfranked final dividend of 3.25 cents per share, up from 2.75 cents per share a year earlier.
Outlook.
The company's managing director and chief executive officer, Rory Macleod, spoke positively about the company's prospects in FY 2020.
He said: "The Group is increasingly well positioned to build into a major global food and beverage business with scale in key food and beverage platforms. The Group continues to experience strong demand across its business activities in Australia, China and SE Asia. This growing demand in dairy, plant based beverage and cereal and snacks reflects the positive impacts on our expanded operational footprint and increasing brand penetration and market share in key strategic channels and categories in Australia, SE Asia and China."
No real guidance was given for the year ahead, but management stated that: "New product revenue streams from the Nutritionals capability are expected to materially positively impact sales and earnings into FY 2020 and beyond."
And that: "Revenues and Operating profits will increase as the Company moves out of the investment cycle, balanced against a requirement to invest in people, systems and process to manage a scaled and diversified business platform."
