May 20, 2005

South Africa's Rainbow Chicken earnings for the year fall

South Africa's Rainbow Chicken posted an 8.6 percent drop in headline earnings per share to 77.9 cents for the year to March but forecast earnings are likely to grow this year due to lower costs.

The food producer had predicted in February its earnings would fall but that the decline was unlikely to reach 20 percent.

Rainbow's results were negatively affected by a contamination of its feedstocks, but the company said it was looking into whether its insurance policies would provide cover for some of the losses.

Rainbow estimated its total volume growth over the past year at 10 percent, of which about 7 percent related to local producers and the balance to a growth in its exports.