Nov 23 (Reuters) - Food group Greencore said on Monday it plans to raise cash by issuing new shares after reporting an 81% plunge in annual profit due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Publishing its results a day ahead of schedule, the Irish company said adjusted profit before tax from continuing operations for the 12 months ended Sept. 25 fell to 17.3 million pounds ($23.02 million), from 92.3 million pounds a year earlier.

Revenue fell nearly 13% to 1.27 billion pounds, with Greencore saying its results were impacted by the UK national lockdown in the second half of the fiscal year.

"Demand for our food to go categories will recover strongly as the effect of COVID-19 recedes, and were encouraged by the uplift in demand that we saw in Q4 as the UK economy slowly reopened," Greencore said.

The company said it intends to conduct a placing of new shares to raise up to 90 million pounds, with certain members of the board and the leadership team planning to subscribe for shares in the offering.

The proposed placing will enable the company to proactively manage debt levels to ensure appropriate liquidity and leverage headroom, it said. ($1 = 0.7516 pounds) (Reporting by Aakash Jagadeesh Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)