News: WOW Australia's Woolworths swings to annual profit as it shores up grocery business

SYDNEY, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Woolworths Ltd (WOW) , Australia's biggest grocery chain by sales, said on Wednesday it swung to an annual net profit from its first ever loss the previous year, helped by cost-cutting at its core supermarket business.

Net profit was A$1.53 billion ($1.21 billion) for the year to June 25, recovering from a net loss of A$1.2 billion the previous year mostly caused by a one-off charge to exit a failed foray into hardware, the company said.

Woolworths declared a final dividend of 50 Australian cents per share, up from 33 Australian cents per share a year ago.

($1 = 1.2639 Australian dollars)