Vancouver / CA. (pbh) Premium Brands Holdings Corporation, a leading producer, marketer and distributor of branded specialty food products, announced its results for the third quarter of 2018.
Third Quarter 2018 Highlights
- Record revenue of CAD 835.5 million representing a 49.8 percent or CAD 277.9 million increase as compared to the third quarter of 2017. The Company’s organic volume growth rate for the quarter was 5.4 percent.
- Record adjusted Ebitda of CAD 71.3 million representing a 44.0 percent or CAD 21.8 million increase as compared to the third quarter of 2017.
- Record adjusted earnings of CAD 0.95 per share representing a 21.8 percent or CAD 0.17 per share increase as compared to the third quarter of 2017.
- During the quarter, the Company invested CAD 254.4 million in the acquisitions of Ready Seafood, Yorkshire Valley Farms and Select Foods.
- The Company provided sales and adjusted Ebitda guidance for 2019.
- Subsequent to the quarter, the Company declared a quarterly dividend of CAD 0.475 per share.
«We made significant progress on many fronts during the third quarter and are generally pleased with our results, which included record sales and earnings and the completion of two very strategic acquisitions. We did, however, have to make some tough but deliberate choices, particularly with respect to our U.S. businesses which are having to navigate through a highly inflationary economy that is operating at full employment.
«As always, we continue to run our business with a long-term outlook and a strong bias towards sustainable growth. Unfortunately, for the third quarter this meant making some decisions that negatively impacted our short term results in order to better position us to generate long-term shareholder value. This included delaying certain new sales initiatives, such as the launching of several very innovative products by our U.S. sandwich and protein platforms, to ensure we have in place the production capacity, trained labor and supply chain robustness necessary to properly support our customers’ needs. We also chose to invest in additional promotion spending and feature pricing in order to accelerate consumer awareness of recently launched sales initiatives in new channels and geographic regions.
«I have no doubt that our decisions are the right ones,» said George Paleologou, President and CEO. «Furthermore, I can say with full confidence that our long term prospects have never been better. In fact, we now have more major new growth initiatives in our pipeline than we have ever had in our history. These cross all of our business platforms and include a wide variety of exciting opportunities such as meat snack sticks and charcuterie in the U.S., artisan sandwiches in grocery and convenience channels across North America and fresh seafood in the U.S. and eastern Canada.
«A common theme across many of our growth platforms is replicating in the U.S. the success they have achieved in Canada, both through acquisitions and organic initiatives. It is still early days, but despite the recent delays in a number of initiatives we are already seeing significant progress on this front with our U.S. sales growing by almost 100 percent in the quarter to CAD 278.7 million and organic growth accounting for close to 20 percent of this growth,» said Paleologou.
«We are making excellent progress towards our goal of building billion Dollar platforms in each of the sandwich, meat snack, cooked protein and seafood categories due in large part to our success in the U.S.,» added Paleologou.
«In addition to showing our strong year over year growth, our third quarter results more importantly demonstrate our ability to continue to grow our business and to generate record results while making the right decisions for creating long-term shareholder value. Our unique business model, entrepreneurial culture and focus on innovation and on producing great quality food products that are relevant to today’s consumers position us very well to deal with any challenges that we may face.
«In terms of acquisitions, 2018 will be the busiest in our history. So far this year we have invested over CAD 740.0 million in new businesses and our pipeline of potential transactions remains very full,» said Paleologou.
