July 22 (SeeNews) - Croatian food, beverage and drug producer Podravka [ZSE:PODR-R-A] said on Friday its first-half net profit rose 5.8% on the year to 97.3 million kuna ($14.3 million/13 million euro) mainly thanks to the positive impact of the acquisition of Slovenian food maker Zito Group last year, which offset large foreign exchange losses.
The company's sales revenue jumped by an annual 26.2% to 1.99 billion kuna in January-June, with its main food business generating a 34.3% growth to 1.6 billion kuna thanks to the consolidation of Zito, which became effective as of October 1, 2015, it said in a bourse filing. Revenues from sales of own-brand food products grew 29.5%.
Podravka suffered foreign exchange losses of 42.6 million kuna during the period, the biggest being because of the Russian ruble - 25.6 million kuna, followed by the euro - 5.9 million kuna.
The group's pharmaceutical business generated revenues of 379.1 million kuna for the six-month period, up 0.4% year-on-year. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange differences, drug revenues grew 4.7%. Revenues from sales of own-brand drugs rose 4.8%.
Podravka noted it recorded sales growth on all its markets in the first half, with the Russia, CIS and the Baltics region outperforming with a 68.2% increase with equal contribution from the food and drug business lines.
Blue chip Podravka share price climbed 1.6% to 335 kuna on the Zagreb stock exchange by 12:50 local time on Friday, performing better than the market, as the CROBEX index was up 0.01% and the CROBEX10 index was up 0.05% by the same time.
(1 euro=7.484 kuna)