Origin Enterprises predicts year of growth

Origin Enterprises chief executive Tom O’Mahony expects the company to enjoy continued growth this year, driven by dairy sector expansion and via acquisitions outside of its core UK and Irish markets.

The agronomy group, which is majority owned by Swiss food group Aryzta, saw its revenues grow in the first half of its financial year to €531.6m, up by 2.7% versus the same period in the previous financial year. Analysts at Goodbody have retained their full-year “outperform” recommendation, despite pre-tax profits dipping by 8.7% from €8.33m to €7.6m, partly explained by the difficult Ukraine market.

The broker estimates that Origin’s stock is slightly undervalued at present, and predicts full-year earnings per share to exceed 61.1c.