Origin Enterprises plc (OGN) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Origin Enterprises PLC Preliminary Results Call 2024. Just a reminder that this call is being webcast live on the internet and the presentation is available to view on the Origin website. I'll now pass over to Sean Coyle, CEO of Origin Enterprises PLC. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, Sonia. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the full year results call for 2024 from Origin Enterprises. I'm joined this morning by my colleagues, Colm Purcell, our new CFO, TJ Kelly, the divisional managing director of our living landscapes business, and Brendan Corbin, our head of investor relations. The Origin numbers this year have come in at the upper end of expectations, really driven by a strong performance in the final quarter with late season applications in the business performing well and the overall business coming in with a very small reduction in profit year on year considering the weather impact that we endured through most of the first three quarters of the year. The business saw a challenging weather environment and decline in profitability particularly in our Ireland UK business although that was somewhat offset by strong demand within our fertilizer and feed businesses with farmers attempting to recover volumes through growth and fodder in the Irish marketplace in particular and also use of feed to compensate for a delayed delivery of feed and fodder on farm again in an Irish context. Our living landscapes business saw reasonable growth with an overall ongoing growth in the contribution to group profits supported to a certain extent by acquisitions and the business continued its disciplined capital allocation returning over 6.7 million to shareholders in the period investing in strategic M&A activity and mainta...