Irish ingredient giant Kerry savouring rising profits

Kerry, the Irish ingredients and flavours maker, has increased its full-year earnings guidance after a strong first half driven by recent acquisitions and new products sales.

Sales revenue rose to €2.9bn, a 10% gain on the same period of last year, although on a like-for-like basis the growth was a more modest 2.5%.

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"Adjusted" profit before tax and non-trading items increased by 13.7% to €209m. This is the crucial figure and probably explains why Kerry's shares have risen 4% in morning trading.

The firm is certainly confident enough to have raised the dividend by 10.2% to 10.8 euro cents per share.

Commenting, Kerry's Chief Executive, Stan McCarthy said: "The group is confident of delivering our full-year growth objectives and has revised adjusted earnings per share guidance upwards. We now expect to achieve eight to twelve per cent growth in adjusted earnings per share in 2012".

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