GK delivers best performance yet
Published:Saturday | February 27, 2021 | 8:36 AM
At nearly a century old and within the context of a raging pandemic, GraceKennedy Limited improved its earnings by nearly $2 billion last year, in what the company says has been its best financial performance in history.
The food and financial services conglomerate headed by Group CEO Don Wehby grew profit from $5.1 billion to a new record of $6.86 billion – numbers that Wehby asserted in a statement included no extra fat in the form of one-off gains. Revenue also climbed to an all-time high of $115 billion, growing 12 per cent in FY2020.
In the statement accompanying the release of the results on Friday, GK said its strategy throughout 2020, the year of COVID, “was securing a reliable global supply chain, improving efficiency to better manage costs, as well as providing new delivery channels and innovative solutions for its customers”. Its main business lines include food trading, money services, insurance, investment and banking.
GraceKennedy also paid out $1.58 billion to shareholders last year, which it said set a new record for dividend distributions. Its first interim dividend for year 2021 will be paid on April 6 at 45 cents per share.
The conglomerate turns 100 years old in February 2022.