ASBFY Associated British Foods Plc (PK)

By Michael Susin

Associated British Foods PLC said Tuesday that pretax profit for fiscal 2022 rose on robust pricing amid a normalization of customer behavior, and raised its dividend payout and launched a buyback program.

The British conglomerate, which owns the Primark fashion retailer, made a pretax profit for the year ended Sept. 17 of 1.08 billion pounds ($1.24 billion), up from GBP725 million in fiscal 2021.

The company said it will launch a GBP500 million share buyback program to be completed in fiscal 2023. It also increased its final dividend to 29.9 pence a share, bringing the total dividend to 43.7 pence a share and compared with a total payout of 40.5 pence a share a year prior.

Adjusted operating profit--the company's preferred metric which strips out exceptional and other one-off items--rose 42% to GBP1.43 billion.

Primark reported sales in line with its previous guidance of GBP7.7 billion, while an operating profit margin improved to 9.8% from the expectations of 9.6%.

Total group's revenue increased to GBP17 billion from GBP13.88 billion. This compares with a forecast of GBP16.75 billion taken from FactSet based on 18 analysts' estimation.

Write to Michael Susin at michael.susin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 08, 2022 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)

Associated British Foods (PK) (USOTC:ASBFY)
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