Finsbury Food shares suffer as results don’t rise

Shares in AIM-listed bakery firm Finsbury Food Group (LON:FIF) have dropped by 3.49% to 55.01p (as of 16:15 BST) after reporting a 4.4% decline in adjusted EBITDA for the year ended 27th June. Revenues were resilient, but the lockdown has an adverse impact on sales and profitability.

CEO John Duffy commented: “The first three quarters of the financial year saw the Group perform in line with market expectations as the benefits of our long-term investment programme and operating initiatives continued to bear fruit. The outbreak of Covid-19 saw unprecedented demand swings and resulted in a challenging period for the Group, but I am proud of how we responded and were able to play a part in ensuring the UK’s supermarkets had the food stocks needed at the time.

After the initial shock, we took decisive action to protect the business, our people and realign our operations to the changes in demand, which resulted in a robust performance in the circumstances. We have seen month-on-month improvement since the outbreak which, encouragingly, has continued into the new financial year. Our teams have worked hard in recent years to build Finsbury into a more resilient business, and there is no doubt those improvements were a key factor in enabling us to remain strongly cash generative throughout the period.

We remain focused on becoming a leading speciality bakery group and, notwithstanding coronavirus-related disruption, we have continued to make good progress towards that goal. There will inevitably be further obstacles to overcome as the pandemic plays out and with Brexit approaching, but there is a sense of cautious optimism in the business, and we are confident that by continuing to manage the business in a disciplined and pragmatic way, we will emerge a stronger, more streamlined and efficient organisation capable of delivering sustainable growth and healthy returns for shareholders“.