Douglas Orane, chairman and CEO of GrcaceKennedy Limited. - File

GraceKennedy Limited made $591 million after tax in the quarter ended September 30, pushing up its nine-month net profits to $1.7 billion or earnings per share of $1.74 and positioning the conglomerate for another record year of performance barring surprises.

Year to date revenues already top $35 billion, and appears set to crest $40 billion by year end.

As it stands now, the conglo-merate's turnover is 34 per cent ahead of the comparative nine-month period last year, and just $600 million shy of the $36.088 billion recorded for the full 12 months of 2006.

Not as certain is whether GraceKennedy will nudge ahead of the $2.17 billion set in 2004. But this outturn is not improbable, given the $500 million to $600 million of fourth quarter net income recorded annually over the past two years.

Dividends

Meantime, the company has declared dividends of 70 cents per share payable December 10 to shareholders on record up to November 19, totalling $231 million.

The payments will bring year to date dividends to $379 million.

GraceKennedy chairman Douglas Orane points to profit growth in the conglomerates two divisions — GK Investments and GK Foods — saying the latter continues to show great growth potential.

"This however will only be possible through the continued development of our human resources through training and recruitment which is ongoing," he said in a statement accompanying the earnings report.

All five of the company's business segments recorded growth in operations, but two in particular were on fire — money services whose operating profit more than doubled from $300 million to $770 million, and retail and trading which rose from $112.5 million to $210.6 million.

Earnings

In the year ahead, GraceKennedy will begin sharing earnings from 'money services' with partner Western Union, which bought 25 per cent of Grace-Kennedy Money Services Caribbean on November 1. The US$29 million deal will be booked in the final quarter.

Banking and investments remained the top contributor to profits in the current period, earning $783 million on operations, but the segment's nominal growth was fairly contained compared to the others — increasing by about $76 million or approximately 11 per cent year on year.

Within the two business units, GK Foods contributed just over one in every five dollars of operating profit, with GK Investments contributing just under four.

Food trading made operating profit of $551 million off revenues of $20.2 billion, reflecting limited retention of 2.7 cents per dollar of sales, compared to retention of 2.9 cents in the nine-month period for 2006 when profits were recorded at $386 million off revenues of $13.4 billion.

business@gleanerjm.com