May 1, 2013

Atria reports strong sales growth in Q1 2013

In the first quarter of 2013, meat processing company AtriaGroup has recorded strong growth of €19.8 million (US$26 million) in its net sales.

According to the Finnish company, net sales figures from January 1-March 31 totalled €328.4 million (US$432.50 million), with earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of €1.1 million (US$1.45 million), the result of the company reversing the sale of a property.

The group also issued a €50 million (US$66 million) bond with a fixed interest rate during the first quarter, which will be used to refinance its "general financing needs".

Sales for the company's Finland-based operations for first quarter totalled €205.1 million (US$270 million) and were up by €16.6 million (US$22 million) on-year. While there was also an improvement on EBIT of €1.5 million (US$2 million) on-year, amounting to €6.7 million (US$8.8 million).

Referring to sales in Finland the company said, "Higher sale prices and slightly higher sales volumes also improved EBIT. The prices of meat raw materials continued to rise."

Net sales for Atria's Scandinavian operation for January-March this year were €94.2 million (US$124 million), an increase of €4.7 million (US$6 million) on-year.  EBIT was €0.2 million (US$263,000).

"The prices of meat raw materials have remained high, which impaired EBIT development," said the company

Meanwhile, operations in Russia saw net sales in first quarter amount to €27.4 million (US$36 million), which was a decrease of 1% on-year. EBIT was also down by €3.1 million (US$4.1 million), which was the result of "improved" industrial operations. However, Atria said, "The weakening of primary production profitability, which started in the latter part of last year, continued to impair performance at the beginning of the year."

Poor performance continued in the company's Baltics operation and net sales in first quarter saw a reduction of €0.7 million (US$922,000) on-year, totalling €7.2 million (US$9.5 million), but the company noted that this was an on-year improvement of €0.1 million (US$132,000).

After posting the results, the company held a "constitutive" meeting to appoint new members to its supervisory board. As a result, Hanni Hyry was elected as chairman and Juhno Anttikoski was re-elected as deputy chairman of the supervisory board.