F&N on track to hit RM500m goal
KUALA LUMPUR: Fraser & Neave Holdings Bhd (F&N) is on track to achieve its target of half a billion ringgit worth of exports from Malaysian operations by 2020 after raking in RM300 million in export sales in its last financial years.
F&N expects to repeat its revenue growth it attained during its financial year 2016 (FY2016) in the financial year 2018 (FY2018) despite high input costs, especially sugar prices and intense pricing pressure.
For its FY 2016, it registered 1.5 per cent growth in revenue to RM4.16 billion and 9.2 per cent margin in net profit to RM385.4 million.
Its chief executive officer Lim Yew Hoe said F&N aimed to accelerate growth strategies with the launch of new products as well as more market penetrations, especially into the halal core market, China and regional market.
As its cost restructuring exercise had completed, the company expected cost savings of RM40 million annually starting from FY2018, he added.
“We had invested in smart capital expenditure, which would promise higher returns as it would bottle-neck our plant capacity to meet demands, especially in export markets.
“Today, we have significantly lower cost structure and more efficient systems and processes, compared when we first embarked on the transformation journey. We have strengthened the company at a fundamental level to be more competitive,” he said at a briefing, here, yesterday.
Lim expects to achieve an “easy” addition of RM200 million worth of exports from FY2018 until 2020 to meet the RM500 million goal.
“For next year, we expect to register more than 20 per cent in export growth from Malaysian operations,” he added.
F&N’s net profit dropped 60.39 per cent to RM19.65 million in the fourth quarter ended September 30, compared with RM49.59 million last year, mainly due to oneoff organisational restructuring cost of RM48.4 million.
For the full year ended September, its net profit fell 16.09 per cent to RM323.38 million, from RM385.37 million a year ago.
Its robust export revenue, however, helped mitigate impact from lower domestic revenue. Amir Hisham Rashid