Simonds Farsons Cisk plc - Full-Year Results

The full-year results of Simonds Farsons Cisk plc for the year ended 31 January 2009 were published on 28 April. The Board of Directors recommended a final net dividend of €0.031111 per share for approval at the forthcoming Annual General Meeting on 25 June 2009. Those shareholders as at close of trading on Tuesday 26 May 2009 will be entitled to this dividend.

Furthermore, the Directors are recommending an increase in the nominal and paid-up value of the shares from €0.291 to €0.30 together with a bonus issue of 1 new share for every 6 shares held. Those members on the Company’s share register as at close of business on 25 June 2009 will be eligible to this bonus issue. The total issued share capital of Simonds Farsons Cisk plc will increase from the current 25,714,286 shares of €0.291 each to 30,000,000 shares of €0.30 each.

During the year ended 31 January 2009, the Simonds Farsons Cisk Group generated a pre-tax profit of €0.9 million compared to a pre-tax profit of €4 million in the previous year. The main reason for this deterioration was the negative performance of the manufacturing segment which was impacted by a substantial increase in the cost of raw materials, lower contribution per litre sold in the carbonated soft drinks segment, inefficiency problems following the installation of the new PET line, one-off charges (including an impairment on the old PET line to its current realizable value, employee early retirement charges and abnormal write-offs on discontinued materials and finished goods) and finally the non capitalization of administration and finance costs following the commissioning of the capital projects. Moreover the January 2009 full-year results were also negatively impacted by a net figure of €0.8 million in lower gains on disposal of assets and fair value gains on properties. The Farsons Group also announced that a decision was taken to discontinue its operations of distributing bottled water in Italy while new Pizza Hut and KFC outlets will be announced shortly.

A copy of the Preliminary Profits Announcement can be downloaded from here.

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