Fruit and veg distributor ups its full-year growth outlook

Total Produce — the Dublin-headquartered international fruit and vegetable distribution company — has upped its full-year growth outlook on the back of a strong set of first-half financial results.

The company achieved annualised revenue growth of nearly 20% and a 14% profit rise.

The results — covering the first six months of 2013 and published yesterday — show that the former general produce arm of Fyffes generated revenues of €1.7bn in the period, up by 18.8% on a year-on-year basis.

Adjusted pre-tax profit was up by 13.7% to €28.2, with earnings per share — on an adjusted basis — rising 10.2% to 4.84c.

Adjusted EBITDA rose 7.5% to €39.1m and the group has increased its interim dividend by 7.5% to nearly 61c.

Total Produce chairman Carl McCann said the business “has continued to deliver good results in 2013”, attributing the strong performance to its overseas expansion programme.

“The group expanded into the North American market in January, with an agreement to acquire 65% of the Oppenheimer group — 35% initially, with a commitment to acquire a further 30% in 2017,” Mr McCann noted.

He said current trading conditions are “satisfactory”, and that management is revising upwards its full-year earnings target. While the outlook is still for earnings per share of between 8c and 8.80c, the management team now expects the final figure to be at the upper half of that range.

The figures also show that Total Produce’s net debt, as of the end of June, was €74.1m. It stood at €94.6m at the same point last year and €53m as of the end of 2012.

Declan Morrissey of Davy Stockbrokers said: “Total Produce has delivered a solid interim statement with strong top-line momentum across key divisions. We will likely upgrade our full-year earnings per share forecast in light of this performance.”