Danone Cuts Profitability Goal on Southern Europe, Costs
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Danone, the world’s biggest yogurt maker, cut its profitability forecast as Spanish consumers switch to less expensive products and raw-material costs rise. The shares fell the most in three years.
The maker of Actimel yogurt expects its operating margin to drop by 0.5 percentage point in 2012 on a like-for-like basis, it said in a statement. Paris-based Danone previously expected a “stable” margin. The shares fell as much as 7.5 percent, the steepest intraday decline since May 2009.