Danone sees lower margin

Brand portfolio to be better positioned

09-Mar-2022 - France

The Danone food group expects a weaker operating profit margin in the current year. In doing so, Danone intends to make its portfolio of brands more active through acquisitions or sales of parts of the company. An operating margin of more than 12 percent is targeted for the current year, the EuroStoxx 50 <EU0009658145>-listed group announced Tuesday at its capital markets day in Paris. In the past six years, Danone managed an operating margin adjusted for special effects in the range of 13.7 and up to 15.2 percent. Whereby the weakest figure was presented in 2021.

In terms of sales, the company aims to achieve an increase of three to five percent on a like-for-like basis, driven by price increases. In 2021, Danone had reported a 3.4 percent increase in revenue on a comparable basis - i.e. before the effects of acquisitions and disposals and the impact of currency translation.

Like many other groups, the French company struggled with rising costs, for example for logistics and raw materials.

For 2023 and 2024, sales growth is expected to remain at the same level as this year, but operating profit adjusted for special items is expected to increase more strongly than revenues.

In the case of acquisitions or sales of parts of the company, Danone is targeting a figure of around 10 percent of sales. In addition, the balance sheet is to be optimized.

With the outlook now presented, Group CEO Antoine de Saint-Affrique wants to lead Danone back to growth and create added value for shareholders, as announced at the annual figures a few weeks ago. The new Danone boss took the reins at the group last September after activist investors caused the departure of his predecessor Emmanuel Faber./stk/mis/eas (dpa)

Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.

https://www.yumda.com/en/news/1175121/danone-sees-lower-margin.html