The Bega Cheese Ltd (ASX: BGA) share price is rocketing today after the company reported its latest earnings covering the full 20204 financial year.
Bega Cheese shares closed at $4.26 each yesterday and opened at $4.25 each this morning. But since then, this ASX 200 consumer staples stock has rocketed up to $4.56 a share (at the time of writing), a giant leap worth 7.04%.
Bega Cheese share price gains 7% on solid full-year results
This morning, Bega Cheese reported the following for its FY2024:
- Net revenues of $3.5 billion, up 4% year-on-year
- Statutory earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $165.1 million, up 15%
- Normalised EBITDA of $164.1 million, up 2%
- Statutory profit after tax of $29.2 million, up 2%
- Final dividend of 4 cents per share, fully franked, declared
Bega Cheese also reported a statutory profit after tax of $30.5 million, which was a pleasing turnaround from the statutory net loss of $229.5 million recorded over FY2023.
Bega's final dividend of 4 cents per share represents a 33.3% increase over the 3 cents per share final dividend from last year. Together with the April interim dividend of 4 cents per share, it takes Bega's full-year payouts to 8 cents per share, a 6.67% rise over FY2023's total of 7.5 cents
What else happened in FY2024?
Bega was particularly pleased with its branded international sales growth. The company reported that its international sales rose by 11% over FY2023 to $257 million, propelled by cheese and yoghurt sales in Asia and the Middle East.
Overall, Bega reported that its branded portfolio, which includes famous names like Dairy Farmers, Farmers Union and Vegemite, represented 86% of the company's revenues (excluding intercompany sales) in FY2024. Bega enjoyed a 6.6% earnings margin on its branded products over the year, compared to a 4.7% margin overall.
The reception to Bega's earnings today caps off a successful period for the company (see below). Back in February, the Bega Cheese share price soared when the company delivered its half-year earnings report too.
What did Bega Cheese management say?
Here's some of what Bega CEO Peter Findlay and Chair Barry Irvin had to say in the company's annual report:
Our Branded business delivered strong results in FY2024, with innovation and focused investment in our core categories and channels driving growth. Our supply, logistics and procurement efficiency programs enabled margin expansion in the Branded business.
Both the dairy and drinks portfolio and the spreads portfolio are now performing at margin levels greater than when they were acquired and have created a Branded platform for the Bega Group to recognise its vision of becoming The Great Australian Food Company.
Our transition to a predominantly brand-led business also saw us increase investment in the food service, local trade and other channels. Pleasingly, our International Branded business had a very strong year in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, despite soft demand in China…
While FY2024 presented significant challenges and we still have work to do to fully address some of them, we emerge from the year with a portfolio of market-leading brands, high quality bulk commodity assets, improved efficiency across our operations and confidence for the future. We enter FY2025 very much on track to continue the delivery of our strategic plan.
What's next for Bega Cheese?
Bega Cheese's management told investors that, "subject to normal trading conditions," they expect both continued growth in the Branded segment and improved performance in its Bulk segment as conditions in the dairy industry improve.
As such, Bega told investors to expedt improvements in profitability and leverage in the 2025 financial year, as well as normalised earnings in the range of $190-200 million.
Bega Cheese share price snapshot
As we touched on above, the BegaCheese share price has been very successful. At the time of writing, Bega Cheese stock is up 51.6% over the past 12 months and 30% in 2024 to date.
At the current share price, Bega Cheese stock is trading on a dividend yield of 1.55%.
