Tiger Brands expects improved full year earnings

The group said the recognition of pension fund surpluses following regulatory approval of the relevant surplus apportionment schemes, accounted for 6.6 percentage points of the expected increase.

Earnings per share (EPS) from continuing operations for the 12 months ended 30 September 2008 are expected to be between 3% and 6% above those achieved in the 2007 financial year.

"The lower percentage improvement in EPS compared to HEPS is primarily due to the inclusion in abnormal items, in March 2008, of an amount of R112.3 million relating to the impairment of the carrying value of the goodwill associated with the beverage business.

"The comparative period included the gain of R272 million arising on the disposal of the company's dairy business. These two items are excluded for the purposes of determining HEPS in the respective reporting periods," the group said in a trading update.

Total HEPS for the year, including the results of recently unbundled Adcock Ingram for the 11 months ended August 2008, will reflect an improvement of between 15% and 20% compared to that achieved in the previous year.

Total EPS for the 12 months ended September 30 2008 is expected to be between 0% and 3% above that achieved in the 2007 financial year.

As a result of the unbundling of Adcock Ingram on August 2008 29, the 2008 consolidated group results include only 11 months of trading of Adcock Ingram compared to a full year's trading in 2007. For this reason, both total HEPS and EPS are not directly comparable with the previous year, according to the group.

The results for the 12 months ended September will be released on 25 November, at which time a detailed analysis of the performance of the company will be provided.

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