George Weston reports sales up from year ago
Bakery business stabilizing amid multi-year transformation plan
George Weston Ltd. reported higher sales and profit in its most recent quarter, as it says its bakery business has started to stabilize amid a multi-year transformation plan. The company earned $271 million attributable to its common shareholders or $1.86 per diluted share for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31.
That compared with a profit of $34 million or 27 cents per share in the same period a year earlier, before it issued about 26.6 million shares in connection with the spin-out of Loblaw’s interest in Choice Properties.
Sales totalled $11.72 billion, up from $11.40 billion a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, George Weston earned $232 million or $1.59 per share for its most recent quarter, compared with $226 million or $1.76 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of $1.57 per share, according to Thomson Reuters Eikon.
“We’re clearly disappointed by our 2018 performance,” said Richard Dufresne, George Weston’s president, during a conference call with analysts Tuesday after the company released its fourth-quarter and full-year results.
He noted that benefits of the company’s three-year transformation program, launched during the fourth quarter of its 2017 financial year, are flowing through and the company is seeing that in its results this year, as well as planning on them for the future.
The transformation plan included a planned reduction in offerings that would see 800 products eliminated.
CEO Galen Weston said the company is about 80 per cent of the way through that process and it will continue through 2019.
Dufresne declined to comment when the company expects to add a previously anticipated $100 million to its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.