Irish food ingredients multinational Kerry Group on Tuesday warned its revenue in China was likely to be down 30% in the first three months of the year due to the coronavirus outbreak.
That is equivalent to around 0.5% of global revenue in its core Taste & Nutrition unit, which earned over 80% of its global revenues of €7.2 billion, chief executive officer Edmond Scanlon told analysts in a conference call.
Kerry's five manufacturing facilities in China are working with a skeleton staff and the firm was monitoring the situation closely, Scanlon said.
Asked if there was likely to be a bounce in revenue once restrictions related to the virus are lifted, Scanlon said it was "probably a little bit too early to say".
Trading Profit
Kerry on Tuesday reported its trading profit for 2019 was up 12.1% to €903 million while earnings per share on a constant currency basis were up 8.3% to 393.7 cents.
It said once the impact of coronavirus disruption was taken into account, it expected to achieve adjusted earnings per share growth in 2020 of 5% to 9% on a constant currency basis.
Goodbody Stockbrokers said that while the impact of coronavirus remained uncertain, that it was likely to adjust its 2020 growth forecast of 9% EPS growth by around 1 percentage point to reflect the China backdrop.
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