Associated British Foods Q3 report 2013

Associated British Foods are running a broken year. They only publish half year reports, which I must admit that I like very much because it removes some stress and of course is cheaper but still, in Q3 and Q1 they arrive with a financial statement. Today they therefore reported on Q3.




I noticed that something had happened because the stock is up by around 6% which is silly. In the statement, you can read the full on here, they have written that:

Highlights

·	Group revenue year to date up 9%
·	AB Sugar sales and profit remain on track for the full year
·	Primark year to date sales 22% ahead
·	No change in expectation of good progress in full year adjusted earnings per share

The reason why they especially bring up the sugar is because that used to be their most profitable part (today it is retail with Primark) and not only that in their half year report they were down by -15%.

The different groups are in Q3 as follows:

Sugar, 1%
Agriculture, 12%
Grocery, 3%
Ingredients, 2%
Retail, 22%

Group in Total is 9% up.

So the retail is growing very strongly.

They do not mentioned either the profits or the revenue but just to indicate in the half year report the revenues and profits were, all in GBP:

Sugar, Revenue: 1323 M, Profit: 163 M
Agriculture, Revenue: 641 M, Profit: 20 M
Grocery, Revenue: 1832 M, Profit: 97 M
Ingredients, Revenue: 540 M, Profit: 2 M
Retail, Revenue: 1997 M, Profit: 238 M

Other mentioning in the Q3 report that I found of interest were that:
The EU sugar tariffs will remain intact which means that all European sugar producers can have a remained high price on the sugar.
The Twinning's tea brand is growing very strongly in the US.
The Primark brand has now entered into France in Marseille, on of the suppliers to Primark was in one of the collapsed buildings in Bangladesh. Primark provided food as well as financial compensation to everyone in the building independent of who their family relative had worked for. I´m glad to hear that they take responsibility and I hope that in the future these kind of accidents will not happen again.

All in all ABF is doing very well. They keep building up strong wall around their castle!