EBITDA pre-restructuring costs £109 million in 2008
Secured funding across operating businesses for next 3 years
Successfully retrieved £144m of cash deposit with New Kaupthing
Profit impacted by significant one-off costs
Maintained sales performance in tough climate
• Turnover £1.6 billion in 2008, up 10% and £412.5 million in Q4, up 11%.
• Underlying like-for-like sales growth was 1.9% in 2008 and 5.1% in Q4.
• EBITDA pre-restructuring costs £108.5 million in 2008, down 27%, and £15.7
million in Q4, down 53%. EBITDA margin pre-restructuring 6.7% in 2008 and 3.8%
in Q4.
• Loss for the period amounted to £154.2 million in 2008 compared with a profit
of £47.4 million in 2007. Loss for the period in Q4 amounted to £98.5 million
compared to a profit of £10.4 million in 2007.
• Profit impacted by £177 million one-off costs, including restructuring costs,
loss on Greencore investment, mark-to-market losses on interest rate swaps and
foreign currency loans and deferred taxation.
• Cash flow from operations £45.7 million in 2008, down 67%, and negative of
£22.7 million Q4, compared to a cash inflow of £27.6 million in Q4 2007.
Ágúst Gudmundsson, Chief Executive Officer:
“In what are difficult operating conditions for many companies, we have secured
funding across all of our operating businesses, strengthened our trading
operations and maintained our sales performance despite the slowdown in
consumer spend.
I am very pleased to report that we have secured fully committed facilities
across all operating businesses, for the next three years to 30 March 2012.
These agreements provide sufficient covenants and liquidity headroom to support
the Group's business plan and clearly demonstrate to our customers, suppliers,
employees and other stakeholders the financial stability of the operating
businesses. In addition, we have retrieved £144 million of the £150 million
deposited with Kaupthing in Q3 and expect to receive the remainder by mid
April.
We are currently in discussions with key bondholders and other creditors of the
Group's holding company, Bakkavör Group Hf, and the Board is confident from the
indications of support from our key bondholders that we will achieve extensions
to bond maturities.
In 2008 our profitability and cash generation were significantly affected by a
number of one-off exceptional factors, such as extensive restructuring activity
and the loss on our investment in Greencore Group Plc, coupled with the tough
trading environment. Through focusing on our business priorities, we have
however made progress in improving operational efficiencies, mitigating
inflationary costs and increasing market share in core product categories.
Going forward, we expect the trading conditions to remain challenging, however
due to the actions we have already taken and the continued focus on our
business priorities we believe the Group is well placed to manage ongoing
trading pressures as well as adapting to current and future consumer demand. As
such, we anticipate returning to profit growth and good cash generation in
2009.”
