PARIS (dpa-AFX) - French drinks company Pernod Ricard SA (PDRDF.PK, PDRDY.PK, PRN.L) reported Thursday that its third-quarter sales totaled 1.74 billion euros, down 13.3 percent from last year's 2 billion euros. Organically, sales declined 14.5 percent.
Sales in Americas increased to 577 million euros from last year's 567 million euros. In Asia/ Rest of the World, sales plunged to 684 million euros from last year's 922 million euros.
Europe sales declined to 475 million euros from 515 million euros last year.
For the first nine months of the year, sales were 7.21 billion euros, with an organic decline of 2.1 percent.
The company said its business is showing good resilience through the coronavirus or covid-19 crisis.
Further, Pernod Ricard said an interim dividend of 1.18 euros per share will be detached on July 8 and paid on July 10. The final dividend will be proposed by the Board at its meeting on September 1 and subject to the AGM decision on November 27.
In its earlier announced 1 billion euros share buy-back programme across FY20 and FY21, the company bought back 523 million euros shares, while the remainder of up to 0.5 billion euros is suspended.
Looking ahead, the company confirmed guidance of a about 20 percent organic decline in Profit from Recurring Operations for full-year FY20.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX