Famous Brands predicts steep climb of earnings

DURBAN – Famous Brands said yesterday that it expected its earnings to climb as high as 179percent for the year to end February as a result of the absence of once-off costs, which negatively impacted Africa’s largest branded food services franchisor a year earlier.

Famous Brands said in the trading update yesterday that it was likely that its earnings per share (Eps) would increase by 165percent and 179percent, to be between 312cents a share and 382c, improving on last year’s loss of 484c.

“The anticipated increase in Eps relates to the costs and impairments recognised in the previous comparable period, none of which reflect in the current review period,” the group said.

In last year’s results, Famous Brands was impacted by once-off costs of R17.2million for professional fees and redundancy costs related to the company voluntary arrangement (CVA) completed at Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK) restaurants in the UK.

The group also suffered an impairment of R873.9m pre-tax relating to GBK recognised at group level as well as an impairment of R25.5m recognised in an associate company in which the group has a minority stake.

Source: iol.co.za