As we all urge ourselves to loose weight after eating well over Christmas, spare a thought for the country’s listed ‘carbs king’ Retail Food Group (RFG).
It owns four carbohydrate generators of international class: Donut King, Michel’s Patisserie, bb’s cafe and Brumby’s Bakeries.
Retail Food Group is Australia’s chief purveyor of carbs-rich comfort food, which it built last year through some smart buys.
It was a good Christmas for RFG and its customers amid all the doom and gloom and wonderment in the media about retail spending.
People obviously spent their money on donuts, rich French-style pastries and pies.
RFG told the ASX yesterday that it would achieve the $9.9 million 2009 first-half net profit forecast at the annual general meeting in November thanks to a buoyant Christmas-New Year period.
RFG announced that retail trade performance of its four iconic franchise systems during December 2008 remained positive thus consolidating excellent 1H09 results in respect of Average Weekly Sales (AWS), Average Transaction Value (ATV) and Network Sales for each of the four chains.
According to CEO, Tony Alford, weighted average weekly sales growth across all outlets was about 5.8% in November and December, compared with 4% growth during October.
Retail Foods also said it had reduced its debt by $19 million after using the proceeds of the sale of its donut making facility in the Gold Coast last month for $9.5 million and early repayments made over the past seven months.
Further details regarding RFG’s performance and full year outlook will be provided at the time of the Company’s publication of 1H09 results currently scheduled for the third week of February 2009.
The Company also said that, "further to its announcement of 9 December 2008, the settlement of the Central Manufacturing Facility (CMF) disposition has now been effected with the transaction proceeds being utilised to voluntarily reduce debt".
RFG CEO Tony Alford noted that “the CMF transaction proceeds of approximately $9.5 million, when coupled with earlier facility repayments made over the course of the past 7 months, have resulted in an overall $19 million discretionary reduction in the Company’s debt position”.
"Debt reduction of this magnitude over such a compressed time frame not only enhances the Company’s capital structure but as well, enhances future earnings," he said in the statement to the ASX.
RFG shares were unwanted yesterday. They last closed at $1.13.
