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Trading statement - year ending June 2019
RCL FOODS LIMITED
(Incorporated in the Republic of South Africa)
(Registration number: 1966/004972/06)
ISIN: ZAE000179438
Share Code: RCL
("RCL FOODS" or "the Group")
TRADING STATEMENT - YEAR ENDING JUNE 2019
In accordance with paragraph 3.4(b) of the JSE Limited Listings
Requirements, shareholders are advised that a reasonable degree of
certainty exists that RCL FOODS' headline earnings per share
("HEPS") and earnings per share ("EPS") for the year ending June
2019 will be lower by at least 20% when compared to the year ended
June 2018 ("comparative period"). Accordingly, HEPS will be at
least 19.4 cents (20%) lower than the comparative period HEPS of
96.8 cents, and EPS will be at least 21.3 cents (20%) lower than
the comparative period EPS of 106.6 cents.
A further trading statement will be released as soon as the Group
has reasonable certainty on the expected HEPS and EPS ranges for
the year ending June 2019.
The expected decline is largely attributable to the performance of
the Sugar and Chicken business units.
The Sugar business unit's performance is expected to be
significantly down on the comparative period due to lower realised
margins resulting from an adverse sales mix. Local market demand
has been severely impacted by the implementation of the health
promotion levy, negative health perceptions of sugar and
uncontrolled imports, resulting in higher volumes of sugar being
sold into the lower margin raw export market.
The Chicken business unit's performance is also expected to be
significantly down on the comparative period. The expected decline
is largely a result of lower realised sales prices stemming from
an oversupplied retail poultry market, as import levels remain
high. This is coupled with higher feed input costs which could not
be fully recovered, due to the depressed selling prices.
Our Grocery brands have continued to perform strongly in the
second half of the year.
EPS for the year ending June 2019 is expected to be higher than
HEPS, largely due to the profit from dormant farm sales and the
profit on disposal of the Speciality business unit's prepared
lines.
The Group's financial results for the year ending June 2019 are
expected to be released on SENS on 2 September 2019.
The directors take responsibility for the financial information on
which this trading statement is based, which has not been reviewed
and reported on by the Group's external auditors.
Durban
4 June 2019
Sponsor
RAND MERCHANT BANK (A division of FirstRand Bank Limited)
Date: 04/06/2019 02:34:00 Produced by the JSE SENS Department. The SENS service is an information dissemination service administered by the JSE Limited ('JSE').
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