Glanbia upgrades full-year earnings guidance, doubles share buyback

Glanbia plc announced first-quarter results on Thursday morning ahead of its annual general meeting in Kilkenny later in the day.

While the performance was relatively soft in the first three months of the year, with both revenue and volumes declining, Glanbia upgraded its full year guidance to 7-11% growth in earnings per share.

Group managing director Siobhán Talbot said that “overall, the first quarter has progressed largely as expected”.

She added that the completion of the sale of the plc’s holding the Glanbia Cheese joint venture in the quarter meant the group was in position to increase the share buyback programme for 2023 from €50m to €100m.

The group has already completed €31.7m of buybacks in the year to date.

Talbot said the first three months of the year was dominated by customer destocking and supply chain rebalancing which hit volumes across the business.

The Optimum Nutrition brand remained very strong, accounting for 60% of Glanbia Performance Nutrition. There was a significant decline in the SlimFast brand ahead of a rebranding due to be completed later this year.

US cheese volumes increased slight (0.2%) but a drop in pricing of 1.5% meant revenue from that stream fell in the period.

Both Talbot and group financial director Mark Garvey, speaking on an analyst call, said they expect the drop in volumes they are seeing to prove transitory and to return to more normal levels in the second half of the year.