Trigon Agri A/S 9m 2011 Interim Report. Profitable performance despite falling soft commodities prices in 3Q and unfavorable autumn weather conditions
Highlights of 9m 2011
Total revenue, other income, fair value adjustments and changes in inventory for 9m 2011 amounted to EUR 70,387 thousand (EUR 67,138 thousand in 9m 2010).
Total operating expenses amounted to EUR 57,420 thousand in 9m 2011 (EUR 65,786 thousand in 9m 2010.
EBITDA in 9m 2011 amounted to EUR 12,967 thousand (EUR 1,352 thousand in 9m 2010).
EBIT in 9m 2011 amounted to EUR 7,176 thousand (loss of EUR 3,676 thousand in 9m 2010).
The Net profit of the Group in 9m 2011 amounted to EUR 4,303 thousand (loss of EUR 8,150 thousand in 9m 2010).
The consolidated assets of the Group as of September 30, 2011 amounted to EUR 192,477 thousand (EUR 148,121 thousand at December 31, 2010).
Trigon Agri’s Chairman of the Board, Joakim Helenius, comments:
Despite adverse weather and price development conditions since the 1H results of the Group were announced, 2011 continues to show good promise. Whilst the profits expected for the full year inevitably have been affected by the adverse conditions, the EUR 12,967 thousand in EBITDA announced in the 3Q results shows that the Group has broken through into solidly profitable territory.
The good performance is driven by the highest average yields and lowest production costs per tonne achieved in the history of the company. The total gross harvest of the group is expected to be around 50% higher than last year whilst the final harvested area has increased by only around five percent. So far the Group has sold around half of its 2011 harvest achieving in all transactions prices above levels which were estimated in the 1H report. The remaining crop in storage is, however, mostly sunflower seeds for which prices took a strong beating when the harvest started in Russia and Ukraine. As due to uncertainties related to possible export restrictions forward contracting of sunflower was not available this season in Russia and Ukraine, the Group decided to store its sunflower crop and not to sell into weakening spot prices. With harvest periods in its regions of operations coming now coming to an end, prices for sunflower seeds have started recovering and the Group hopes to make back a significant part of the sunflower value mark-downs taken in Q3 in the last quarter of the financial year.
The completion of the EUR 37 million bond issue in Q2 2011 and the positive operational cash flow during 2011 put the Group in a strong liquidity position which gives it a solid platform to navigate through the current turbulent global economic environment. The longer term structural outlook in the soft commodity industry continues to point towards strong demand driven support for improved soft commodity prices going forward. In the near term future, however, we believe that soft commodity prices are likely to remain depressed as a result of the effects of the ongoing global deleveraging process.
Outlook
Given the very uncertain global economic outlook the Group has decided to significantly slow down its expansion from what has earlier been announced. By retaining strong liquidity we want to be in a position to take advantage of potentially interesting distressed acquisition opportunities that might arise. Accordingly we aim to increase our harvested area in the 2011/2012 season by only about 10%, although possible acquisitions could significantly increase this number. Instead our focus will be on applying the results from the promising work carried out by our R&D division in the 2010/2011 season to aim for a significant improvement in crop yields next season. Our aim will be to maximize profits whilst minimizing risks in the exceptionally difficult and unpredictable global economic environment we expect to find ourselves in in 2012.
Investor enquiries:
Mr. Ülo Adamson, President and CEO of Trigon Agri A/S
Tel: +372 66 79200
E-mail: mail@trigonagri.com
About Trigon Agri
Trigon Agri is a leading integrated soft commodities production, storage and trading company with operations in Ukraine, Russia and Estonia. Trigon Agri’s shares are traded on the main market of NASDAQ OMX Stockholm. Trigon Agri is managed under a management agreement by Trigon Capital, a leading Central and Eastern European operational management firm with around USD 1 billion of assets under management.
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