Fraser and Neave (F&N) has booked a drop in first-quarter profits, hurt by an exceptional loss from flood damage to the firm’s Rojana dairy facility last year.
For the three months to the end of December, the Singapore-based food and beverage group saw trading profit slide 2.2% to S$264.4m (US$209m). Profit before interest and taxation amounted to $286m, a 1% decline on the prior-year.
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Profit after tax was down 21% to S$241m, due mainly to the absence of a $100m exceptional gain from the completion of corporate and debt restructuring of the group’s UK property business recorded last year. Excluding exceptional items, profit after tax improved 4% to $212m.
F&N achieved revenues of $1.36bn in the quarter, but this was a decline of 11% over the same period last year.
In the firm’s dairy division, revenues and earnings were affected by the temporary
cessation of operations at its Rojana dairy plant in Thailand due to floods last year, in addition to high input costs, particularly in Malaysia.
As a result, the division’s profits slumped 85% to S$2m.
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By GlobalData“The group expects the plant to return to operations, in stages, by March 2012, and resume full-scale production of all products by May 2012. For now, to mitigate supply disruption, the group will continue to draw support from its manufacturing facilities in Malaysia as well as approved third-party manufacturers to supply Thailand and other Indochina markets,” the company said.
