Premier Group Celebrates 200 Years

From The CEO's Desk

Premier heads into its third century with extraordinary people and world class facilities making a difference in the everyday lives of its consumers. This year we celebrate our 200th anniversary. It’s a proud moment for us. It’s also our first full set of results since we’ve listed and we’re proud to present what we’ve achieved.

ESG is not just something we talk about, it’s a major part of our go-to-market strategies. We’re proud to have been able to create the impact we’ve created in the communities in which we operate.

We’ve invested significantly into our top 400 leaders who are all working together with a common purpose. This is a major factor in our ability to unlock the value we continue to create for our people, communities and shareholders.

Our strategic focus on operational efficiencies, margin management, and upskilling our team has been key to our success.

It takes time to execute on a strategy that requires a significant investment in capability, brands and people.

- Kobus Gertenbach - CEO

Our 200-year History

Premier celebrates its 200-year history dating back to a bakery started by AD Taylor on 1 July 1824 which subsequently became the well-known Attwell Bakery in 1825. Of the current brands in our portfolio, BB Bakeries is the oldest and was registered in 1851.

The second oldest brand in the portfolio is Snowflake which was registered in 1884 by the Port Elizabeth Steam Mill Company. Attwell Bakery then merged with the Port Elizabeth Steam Mill Company to form SA Milling and the growth story began to gain momentum.

In 2011, a strategic transformation journey began when Brait SA became the strategic long-term shareholder in Premier Foods, which later became known as Premier FMCG. In March 2023, Premier Group re-listed on the JSE (PMR).

Today, Premier operates 13 bakeries, 3 maize mills, 7 wheat mills, 2 sugar confectionery plants, a feminine hygiene manufacturing facility, as well as manufacturing facilities for biscuits, pasta, animal feeds and maize-based beverages.

Premier services the market via 26 distribution depots throughout South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho and Mozambique. Premier exports its brands to the USA, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Ireland, Middle East, several European countries and the SADC. The group has an annual turnover of R18.6-billion and employs more than 8 600 people, under the stewardship of Kobus Gertenbach, CEO. Kobus was appointed CEO in March 2021 after joining Premier as CFO in March 2011.

At the heart of Premier’s success has been a sustained investment in our strategic assets. Since 2011, over R6-billion has been invested in capital expenditure projects to ensure that our operations are leading edge in terms of technology, have sufficient capacity to meet demand, and are compliant with the regulatory and health and safety requirements. The majority of our sites have FSSC 22000 accreditation, as well as other accreditations including BRC AA for HPC, amongst others.

Our unwavering commitment to our purpose enables us to empower our people and our communities. Investing in education and nurturing the next generation of leaders is ingrained in our values supporting our philosophy of “Growing together”.

In the past 10 years we have achieved the following:

• 77 000 of our people have been trained across a variety of programmes equating to R179-million investment in our people.

• Our Enterprise Supplier Development programme has empowered 78 entrepreneurs through skills training and ownership in bakery logistics.

• 94 CEO bursaries have been awarded to children of employees and 277 employees have benefited from our study assistance programme, equating to R10-million investment in our people and their children.

• 275 disabled youths have been empowered through a learnership programme and 576 youths have been empowered through different apprentice, intern and graduate programmes across the business.

Our focus in 2024 is to achieve accreditation for our own Technical Development Centre to train critical and scarce technical skills via apprenticeships.

Premier achieved a Level 4 B-BBEE rating in 2023, an improvement from Level 5 in 2022 and was unrated prior to that. In 2023, Premier was certified as a Top Gender Empowered company and in 2024 attained the #1 position in the Food Processing sector within the Top 500 Best Managed Companies rankings.

Our brands and products have stood the test of time. Innovation has kept our brands relevant to our consumers. We continue to invest in best-in-class execution through uncompromising standards of quality. We have cultivated a high performance culture, challenging our people to be the best version of themselves, constantly evolving our focus on initiatives and actions that move the dial and cull wasteful endeavours. In a nutshell, it is the Premier Way. Our commitment to our purpose extends to ensuring products are always within reach of our loyal consumers.

Premier has delivered another set of robust financial results for the year ended 31 March 2024. Highlights include:

• Revenue up 3.6% to R18.6-billion

• EBITDA up 18.6% to R2.1-billion

• Operating profit increased by 26.4% to R1.6-billion

• Net profit rose by 15.8% to R921-million

• Normalised HEPS increased by 34.8% to 744 cents

According to CEO Kobus Gertenbach, “it takes time to execute on a strategy that requires a significant investment in capability, brands and people”. In the four-year period through COVID-19 and global inflation, Premier has delivered a stellar performance.

• Revenue compound annual growth of 14% from R11.0-billion to R18.6-billion

• Operating Profit compound annual growth of 27%, up from R0.6-billion to R1.6-billion

• Continued investment in our assets with R2.1-billion capex over the past 4 years

• Group leverage ratio improvement from 2.4x to 0.9x

Address: Building 5, Maxwell Office Park, Magwa Crescent West, Waterfall City 2090

Telephone: +27 (0) 11 565 4300

Email: customercare@premierfmcg.comWebsite: premierfmcg.com

LinkedIn: Premier FMCG (Pty) Ltd