Mr. Jackson: Associated British Foods was founded in 1935 by Garfield Weston who came to the UK from Toronto and built a successful bakery business which formed the foundations of what is today Europe’s sixth largest food manufacturer. He bought and developed other successful food businesses in the UK and added retailing to the companyie’s portfolio. On his retirement his son, Gary Weston, led the business for the best part of 40 years up until 1999, when he became chairman on my appointment as chief executive. During Gary Weston’s stewardship ABF grew into an international force in food, ingredients and retailing. The company had a leading position in baking, and milling and in 1989 Gary pulled off what is generally regarded as one of the most astute acquisitions of the decade when he brought British Sugar into the group. Also during this period internationally regarded brands such as Ryvita and Twinings were being nurtured and ABF was also taking international positions in food and ingredients in the US, Australasia, China and Poland. He ran the business very successfully and to such an extent that, in seven out of ten years in the 1990s, he beat the FTSE. My partnership with Gary Weston however was sadly short lived as soon after my appointment he suffered a stroke and was unable to resume active participation in the business prior to his death earlier this year. Prior to this we had already started on a process of strategic review which has lead to the current phase of consolidation and acquisition which is to be the basis of our growth in the future. To give you some sort of reference to the size of ABF today, as of the end of the September last year, the sales were GBP4.4 billion sterling and the EBIT was just over GBP350 millions. At the half-year that we have just announced we were 13% up on the previous year. ABF operates in four major sectors throughout the food chain. It’s a UK leader in some of the food staples such as sugar and flour; it’s in ingredients -- bakery ingredients, enzymes and the like; and it’s in branded grocery products with famous products such as Twinings tea, Kingsmill bread, Ryvita crispbread, Silver Spoon sugar and many others. Our Australian subsidiary is one of the subcontinents largest food companies and we also have a fast growing clothes retailing arm in Ireland and in the UK.
Tickers included in this excerpt: ABF.L
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