By Business & Finance 
The Kerry group is leading the way in the push to make Ireland a world leader in food production and CEO Stan McCarthy is determined to make Ireland the centre of Kerry’s production.
Because
Food group Kerry announced in October that it will invest €100mn and create 800 jobs and at a new technology and innovation centre in Kildare.
The new facility will be built on 28 acre site in the Millennium Business Park, Naas and will accommodate 800 people in 2015 and a further 100 positions by mid-2016.
The Kerry Group, which currently employs 24,000 people worldwide and has a turnover of €5.5bn turnover, says that the Naas facility will house Kerry’s global technology and innovation centre as well as the global and EMEA regional management of the company’s ingredients and flavours division.
At the heart of Kerry’s continued growth and development has been CEO Stan McCarthy, who has been one of the driving forces behind the company which is a world leader in the food and ingredients market.
Successful 2012
Kerry reported pre-tax profits of €208.6 million for the first six months of 2012, a 13.7% increase on the €183.4mn in the same time last year. Group revenue was reported as up by 10% to €2.9bn for the six months to the end of June with a breakdown of its divisions showing that revenue at Kerry’s ingredients and flavours business rose by 14% to €2.1bn.
Following the release of the results McCarthy said that the board is increasing its interim dividend per share by 10.2% to 10.8 cent and detailed the increase in guidance for adjusted earnings per share in 2012:
“Kerry achieved a strong financial and operating performance in the first half of 2012 which augurs well for the full year. We have a strong innovation pipeline and continue to make good progress in implementation of our ‘1 Kerry Business Transformation’ programme. The group is confident of delivering our full year growth objectives and has revised adjusted earnings per share guidance upwards. We now expect to achieve eight to twelve per cent growth in adjusted earnings per share in 2012”.
International acquisitions
A key focus of Kerry’s business in 2012 has been the successful integration of the acquisitions completed in 2011. In September of last year Kerry purchased German based ingredients supplier SuCrest in an expansion of their European division. The value of the deal has not been disclosed but the ingredients firm had 2010 revenues of €50mn.
In another acquisition to its ingredients business in 2011 Kerry group bought multinational food flavouring company Cargill Flavor Systems for a total consideration of $230mn. Cargill have annual revenues of approximately $200mn and employ 700 people across 23 different countries development bases in 11 countries including France, the UK, South Africa, China an the USA
It is clear that both deals aim to increase further Kerry’s global reach in the food ingredients market and the half-year year figures have already benefitted from the acquisitions with like-for-like growth in the trading profit of the ingredients and flavours business of 10.9% to €213m with the division’s trading margin improved by 30 basis points to 10.3%.
CEO
Stan McCarthy was appointed chief executive of Kerry Group plc, a public company listed on the Dublin and London Stock Exchanges, on the first day of 2008. Prior to this appointment, he was president and CEO of Kerry Ingredients Americas since 1996 and before that, an executive director of the group since 1999.
In fact, McCarthy’s career has progressed almost entirely within the Kerry Group. A native of Co Kerry himself, he joined the group’s graduate recruitment programme in 1976 and worked in finance in Ireland until his appointment as financial controller in the USA after Kerry’s representative office was established in Chicago in 1984.
Following the group’s €130m acquisition of Beatreme Food Ingredients (Beatreme is the top speciality food supplier in the US) in 1988, he was appointed vice-president of materials management and purchasing.
In 1991, he was appointed vice-president of sales and marketing and was then named president of Kerry Ingredients Americas in 1996.
Kerry Gold
- Kerry to invest €100mn at new 800 person facility in Kildare
- Pre-tax profits up by 13.7% to €208.6mn in H1 2012.
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