Goodman Fielder posts $147m loss for 2011-12

Goodman Fielder Limited has posted an NPAT loss of $146.9 million for the 2011-12 financial year, slightly less than the 2010-11 NPAT loss of $166.7 million.

According to CEO Chris Delaney, the trading result does not yet reflect the work the company is doing to profitably compete in a challenging trading environment. However, Delaney said he was pleased with the company’s progress in establishing a stable platform to enable it to implement its strategy for medium-term growth.

“In the past year, we set ourselves four key strategic goals which are critical to improving the company’s earnings performance and restoring acceptable shareholder returns in the medium term,” Delaney said. “I am pleased to report that the company has delivered on each of these key priorities.”

“We stabilised earnings through significant overhead and cost reduction, particularly in our Baking division, but also by achieving further earnings growth in our Asia-Pacific business,” Delaney said. “That has required strict management focus on implementing our restructuring initiative, Project Renaissance, to create a cost structure which is aligned to current market conditions.”

Goodman Fielder says it is on track to achieve $100 million in cost savings by 2015, having achieved $23 million in savings in the 2011-12 financial year. The company has also reduced its net debt by 24% from the previous year, as a result of the successful $259 million capital raising conducted in 2011.

“We have also commenced the second phase to optimise our manufacturing and supply chain to deliver $25 million in ongoing savings by FY13/14. That includes the consolidation of our bakery facilities to improve our manufacturing efficiency and lower distribution costs which we announced in June,” Delaney said.