Flowers Foods Announces Results for Its Q4 2015

Flowers Foods, inc. released its fourth quarter results for fiscal year 2015 late last week. With a busy year in acquisitions and strategic growth, President and CEO Allen Shiver remained optimistic.

"While we continued to make significant progress on our strategic initiatives, our earnings in the fourth quarter were impacted by sales that were below plan,” Shiver said, according to the financial report. “In line with channel data for the total store, the pace of Flowers' retail sales in the fourth quarter slowed relative to trends we observed in the first three quarters.”

Highlighted points of the report included:

• Sales decreased 2.2% to $858.4 million.
• Excluding acquisitions and the extra week last year, sales increased 0.5%.
• Adjusted for items affecting comparability, EPS decreased 20.0% to $0.16.
• Adjusted for items affecting comparability, EBITDA decreased 6.7% to $86.7 million.
• Dividend increased 9.4% to $0.145 per share.

Shiver continued to clarify that the company’s earnings for the quarter were negatively impacted by approximately $0.03 per share due to the lower than anticipated sales, while certain costs originally planned for the first quarter of 2016 were incurred in the fourth quarter of 2015, impacting EPS by $0.01.

"It would be a mistake not to recognize the team's accomplishments during the year on several initiatives integral to Flowers' long-term strategy to grow in underdeveloped categories and geographies,” the President and CEO continued. "First, with our acquisitions of Dave's Killer Bread and Alpine Valley Bread, we grew Flowers' share in the fast-growing organic segment of the specialty premium category, extended our geographic reach, and broadened our retailer relationships.”

While Shiver did add that the company is not satisfied with its fourth quarter, the company currently anticipates sales in the range of $3.986 billion to $4.080 billion, representing growth of approximately 5.5% to 8.0% over fiscal 2015 reported sales of $3.779 billion in 2016. It also projects EPS in the range of $0.98 to $1.04, representing growth of approximately 6.5% to 13.0% over fiscal 2015 adjusted EPS of $0.92.

"We are not satisfied with our performance in the fourth quarter,” Shiver concluded. “Even so, for the full year we delivered record adjusted EPS and we took important steps to position Flowers for opportunities in 2016 and beyond.”

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