Taxes eat away at Frieslandcampina’s growth, margins

That single quarter sits inside a half-year shaped by an unusually heavy levy. Management reports a 67.0% effective tax rate in 1H2025, a one-off tied to a Supreme Court ruling in May 2025 that settled earlier obligations. The note stresses it will not affect future quarters, but the optical damage for 1H remains: an otherwise improving operating story reads like a slump when the year-to-date profit is viewed post-tax.

The full-year comparison for 2024 offers a useful control sample. For calendar 2024, FCEPL grew net sales 7.0%, expanded gross profit 11.0%, and lifted operating profit 23.0%. EBITDA rose 20.0%, and profit before tax increased 20.0%. After taxes, profit rose 46.0%, and EPS improved to PKR 2.9 from PKR 2.0 a year earlier. The company even reinstated a cash dividend of PKR 2.8 per share for the year. By the end of June 2025, however, the quarterly mix of a 4.0% revenue decline and a 394.0% surge in the tax line had pulled quarterly EPS down to PKR 0.3 from PKR 0.8 despite better operating metrics. The story, in short: growth held up through 2024; taxes ate the 2025 rebound.