Brambles Limited (ASX:BXB) CEO, Tom Gorman discusses the Company’s FY2015 Results and Growth Strategy Let me start by saying that I think Brambles Limited
(ASX:BXB) is a great company. We have a 140-year history, a very proud history, based here in Australia. But over those 140 years, Brambles has been many different things in reality. We were a very broad-based conglomerate for a large portion of our history. But more recently, really since the beginning of this century, we’ve been on a journey to create a supply chain Solutions Company.
And I’m very proud to say that today we’re an extremely focused supply chain Solutions Company. We operate in over 60 countries around the world. We have revenue of about $US6 billion and our sole mission in life is to make the supply chains of our customers, work more effectively and more efficiently.
When you go back and look at our performance, our financial performance, whether it’s through FY15 or through the first quarter of financial year 2016. I think the thing that we’re most proud of; I would start with by saying that as a company, we continue to do what we say we’re going to do. And what do I mean by that? Each year we provide guidance to the market and FY15, we delivered right solidly in the middle of that range of guidance. Our revenue increased by about eight per cent in FY15, and our underlying profit grew by 10 per cent. So we’re very proud of the performance that we’re delivering financially, which obviously rewards our shareholders.
And when we look at this year, we’re now one quarter through our FY16 performance and again this year we’re at the top end of our guidance range. We provided guidance to the market that we would deliver revenue and profit in the range of six to eight per cent. And what we announced to the market a few weeks ago was that our revenue line, grew by about eight per cent. So we’re at the top end of that and we feel good about where we’re heading into this year.
So this year our total dividend payout was 28 Australian cents per share. That’s up one Australian cent, or about 3.7 per cent versus the prior year.
Our focus for FY16 is really about what we try to focus on every year, which is let’s do what we committed to do. We’ve given market guidance that we can grow revenue in the range of six to eight per cent, and underlying profit will grow in the same range of six to eight per cent. Our first quarter has started out well; we’re at the top end of that range in terms of our market guidance on revenue growth. So first and foremost, let’s do what we say we’re going to do and we’re absolutely committed to giving that, delivering that outcome.
But when you step back, within that commitment, what’re we really trying to accomplish? We want to deepen our relationship with our customers, continue to deliver them services that they value, products that they value and to continue to grow, as their businesses grow. And in order to do that, we’ll focus on being very efficient. I’ve talked about taking cost out of our system and that’s a big part of what we’re focusing on this year. And as we save cost in one area, we’re really reinvesting for the customers benefit.
A big initiative that we have underway is our focus on innovation. Today we’re spending a small amount of capital on new ways of doing business. And I think as FY16 unfolds, you’ll hear a lot more from the company about where we see the role of technology. How we marry technology to our asset base and how that’s going to deliver more value, both for ourselves internally, the way we manage our business. But more importantly, deliver value for our customers.
It’s going to be a very exciting year, it has started well and we’re already looking forward to our delivery in FY16.
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