* FY diluted headline EPS 132.5 cents vs 112.1 cents
* Lags analysts expectations as sugar output falls
(Adds details)
JOHANNESBURG May 28 (Reuters) – South Africa’s Illovo Sugar
Ltd posted an 18 percent rise in full-year earnings on
Monday helped by cost cuts but the profit slightly lagged
analysts expectations as sugar output fell.
Illovo, a unit of Associated British Foods, said
diluted headline earnings per share for the year to the end of
March totalled 132.5 cents from 112.1 cents the previous year.
The diluted headline earnings per share number was expected
to come in at 133.037 cents, according to an average estimate of
six analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
Headline earnings are the main profit gauge in South Africa
and exclude certain one-off and non trading items.
The company, which is Africa’s biggest producer of the
sweetener with operations in South Africa, Malawi, Zambia,
Swaziland, Tanzania and Mozambique, said sugar production fell 7
percent to 1.526 million tonnes.
Illovo said the decline in output was due to the impact of a
second year of drought in the dry land cane growing areas in
South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
But the rise in sugar production elsewhere was insufficient
to offset the decline in South Africa, it said.
The company said it expected a new record volume of group
cane production in the current 2012/13 season.
Illovo shares have gained 5.5 percent so far this year,
compared with a 3 percent rise in Johannesburg’s All-share Index
.
(Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda; Editing by Ed Stoddard)
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