Astral Foods foresees 120% HEPS increase for H1
Integrated poultry producer Astral Foods is reasonably certain that its headline earnings a share for the first half of the year will increase by at least 120%, or 465c a share, to 851c a share compared with the 386c a share reported for the comparable 2014 period.
The JSE-listed company based the improvement in earnings on trading conditions experienced up to the end of January 2015 and advised shareholders on Monday that the cause of the increase was as expected.
The improvement in Astral Foods’ results for the six months ending March 31 was attributed to healthy global maize and soya crops, which resulted in the softening of grain prices and, subsequently, benefited feed prices and livestock production costs. The increased feed volumes that included production from the recently commissioned Standerton feed mill, in Mpumalanga, previously supplied by Afgri, were also highlighted, as were increased poultry sale volumes. In particular, Astral Foods noted its expansion in the Western Cape, which included broiler chickens, formerly processed by Tydstroom Poultry and currently contracted from diversified feeds and poultry business Quantum Foods, which owned Tydstroom.
Astral Foods said the increased poultry sale volumes were the result of good poultry production efficiencies and the fact that cutbacks in the year-ago comparative period were not being repeated.
“It is [also] notable that Astral did not benefit from lower levels of imports, especially bone-in portions from European Union countries, as the temporary antidumping measures introduced by the International Trade Administration Commission did not have the desired impact,” the company explained.
Astral would announce a more definite range of the increase in earnings once available and expected to publish its interim results for the first half of 2015 on May 18.
Comments
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation