Grindrod: Group expects lower annual earnings

GRINDROD expected headline earnings a share for the year to December to be between 7 percent and 12 percent lower than the previous year, the company said yesterday. This equates to headline earnings a share for this reporting period of between 110.4c and 104.5c. It attributed the decrease to the group increasing the number of issued shares by 27 percent to 751 million, resulting in the weighted average number of issued shares increasing 15 percent to 678 million. It said headline earnings were expected to rise by between 2 percent and 7 percent to between R715.8 million and R750.9m. However, the realisation of a large foreign currency translation reserve in the prior year was expected to result in earnings for the period falling between 13 percent and 18 percent to be between R1.02 billion and R965m. The shares jumped 6.19 percent to close at R19.55. – Roy Cokayne