Haleon Pretax Profit Rises Despite Revenue Drop

By Najat Kantouar

Haleon reported a higher pretax profit for the first quarter despite lower revenue against tough comparatives in the prior year particularly in respiratory health and pain relief divisions, but backed its full-year guidance.

The consumer-healthcare business--which was spun out of GSK and is partly owned by Pfizer-- said Wednesday that for the three months ended March 31 pretax profit was 590 million pounds ($737 million) compared with GBP542 million for the same period a year earlier.

Revenue fell 2% to GBP2.91 billion from GBP2.99 billion, in line with market consensus of GBP2.91 billion based on two estimates taken from FactSet.

Within this, North America organic revenue fell 3.3% to GBP996 million due to reduced volume mix in Respiratory Health and Pain Relief. In Europe, Middle East & Africa and Latin America organic revenue rose 8.6%, while in Asia-Pacific it grew 3.3%.

Adjusted operating profit margin--the company's preferred metric that strips out exceptional and other one-off items--rose 2.3% at constant currency to GBP707 million.

The company maintained its 2024 target of organic revenue growth range of 4% to 6%. It also expects organic operating profit growth to be ahead of organic revenue growth. These are the same targets for the medium term.

Haleon still expects to allocate GBP500 million to buy back shares in 2024.

Write to Najat Kantouar at najat.kantouar@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 01, 2024 02:45 ET (06:45 GMT)

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