Reckitt Benckiser Swung to Net Loss for 2019

By Matteo Castia

Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC said Thursday that it swung to net loss for 2019, hurt by discontinuing operations and legal issues, and despite increasing like-for-like sales.

The consumer-goods company--which houses Dettol, Harpic and Durex among its brands--posted a net loss for the year of 3.68 billion pounds ($4.76 billion) compared with a profit of GBP2.16 billion a year earlier. Reckitt also booked a pretax loss of GBP2.11 billion, from a GBP2.72 billion profit in 2018.

Revenue for the year rose 2% year-on-year to GBP12.85 billion, while on a like-for-like basis sales were up 0.8%. This compares with a guidance of 0%-2% growth given last October.

Adjusted operating profit--one of the company's preferred metrics which strips out exceptional and other one-off items--was largely stable, rising slightly to GBP3.37 billion from GBP3.36 billion.

Reckitt said that results suffered from a $1.40 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice related to its Indivior fraud case, as well as a GBP898 million expense coming from discontinuing operations.

The board declared a final dividend of 101.6 pence a share taking the total payout to 174.6 pence for the year, up from 170.7 pence in 2018.

"We ended 2019 broadly in line with our expectations for net revenue growth and adjusted operating profit from October," Chief Executive Laxman Narasimhan said.

Write to Matteo Castia at matteo.castia@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 27, 2020 03:17 ET (08:17 GMT)

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