HIGH in protein, starch and essential minerals, the banana has become a lifestyle statement. Sports personalities, particularly tennis players who unzip a couple of the genus paradisiaca sapientum as a source of quick energy between games, have widened its already popular appeal.
Leading fruit importer and distributor Fyffes should be bursting with vitality after last year's £147 million purchase of Ceest's banana interests. But its hardly suprising that Fyffes feels somewhat queasy, the corporate stomach requiring a period of consolidation for the digestive tract to kick in and do its stuff.
Pre tax profits last year bounded ahead 16 per cent to £42 million but the board cautions that 1996 will essentially be a year of transition and absorption, as the group comes to terms with its investment in Geest. Fyffes has also assumed £50 million of Geest borrowings.
The Geest business, which had produced disappointing results over the past few years, is expected to contribute to improved group profits in 1997. Fyffes finance director Carl McCann admits that the latest acquisition requires urgent attention if satisfactory results are to be achieved.
Uncertainties over pricing and the EU banana regime have placed a banana skin in the path of the Fyffes share price, its market rating failing to reflect either the group's performance or its potential. Shareholders find some consolation in unzipping total dividends raised 10 per cent to 1.667p a share.
