|
||||||||
  |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Brambles tumbles on profit warning
By Geoff Hiscock
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Shares in diversified industrial group Brambles Industries Ltd. tumbled almost 30 percent Thursday after a profit warning, slicing more than Aust. $2.3 billion ($1.29 billion) from its market value. Shares in the company, which is dual listed in Australia and London, closed 29.7 percent lower at Aust. $4.33, a drop of $1.83. The broader Australian market, measured by the S&P/ASX200, finished about half a percent higher at 3021.9 Brambles chief executive Sir C.K. Chow told a media briefing he was unable to give earnings estimates for the year to next June 30 because of restrictions stemming from the company's London listing. Earlier in the day, Brambles issued a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange in which it said that full-year earnings before interest, tax and goodwill amortization from continuing business was "now expected to be below earlier expectations". But it said cash generation would remain strong. Down 9 percentBrambles said earnings for the four months to the end of October were down 9 percent from a year earlier. Brambles operations include the CHEP pallet businesses in Europe and America, and the Cleanaway, Recall, Interlake and Industrial Services businesses. It said its earnings from its CHEP pallet operations in Europe were significantly down from the previous year, and it would take a one-off exceptional charge of about £85 million (Aust. $238 million) over two and a half years to cover restructuring of those operations. Chow took over the CEO's role last year from John Fletcher -- now the CEO of retailer Coles Myer -- after a merger between Brambles and Chow's GKN group in August 2001. Chow said in a statement that Brambles had a clear strategy and had faced up to the issues arising from a review of its CHEP business. He said it had "now set the foundation for a revitalized company".
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
