DAVY'S MEDIA-SHY food group analyst John O'Reilly pulled no punches in his assessment of Fyffes's recent profit warning in the broker's morning meeting note on Monday.

"Fyffes's profit warning is even more unexpected in its severity than its occurrence," said O'Reilly, who is generally regarded as one of the best food company analysts in town.

"How such a strong profit showing in H1 can transform into a projected and potential sharp full-year decline (implying a H2 operating loss) is a mystery to us," he added.

"Plainly, our analytic framework is highly suspect. Until we fix this, we cannot assess how much value there is in the current rating."

O'Reilly revised downwards his 2008 earnings per share forecast for Fyffes in late August, reducing it from 4.8 cent to 3.2 cent.

We await his next research note on the banana importer with great interest.