December 4, 2013

Peru's Camanchaca posts 47% revenue growth from salmon farming

 

In the first nine months of 2013, Peruvian fishing company Camanchaca SA had recorded revenues of €226.451 million (US$307.4 million), a growth of around 47% on-year from salmon farming products and 14% from other products, which partially offset a decrease of 8% in its fishing division.

 

The company pointed out that in the third quarter the Atlantic salmon price continued experiencing a favourable outcome. It rose 10.4% over that that has been accumulated in the first nine months of 2012 and 44.1% compared with the same quarter last year.

 

Gross margin (before fair value) was €444,354.318 (US$603,000), €0.811 million (US$1.1 million) less than in 2012. Camanchaca attributed the decline "mainly to the accumulated high costs in salmon sale, especially those sold in the second quarter, resulting in €3.169 million (US$4.3 million) less in margin than in 2012, compared with the €2.505 million (US$3.4 million) improvement in the business of the other farmed products."

 

On the cost side, from August to the end of the year, Camanchaca's harvests will focus exclusively on the Region 10, in centres that have historically exhibited good sanitary performance.

 

Therefore, the harvests will have more favourable costs, thus allowing standardisation of sanitary conditions and convergence at costs that are more in line with the normal ones.

 

The unfavourable sanitary conditions recorded during the second quarter in three centres of the District 20, Canal King (northern area of Aysen), significantly affected the costs because of the parasites and the high levels of anti-parasite treatments.

 

That resulted in poor feed conversion and in lower than expected sizes, affecting the salmon target markets and the prices.

 

In the report the firm also highlights that there was a lower fishmeal production as a result of lower levels of anchovy fishing in the north and lower sardine catches in the southern zone of Chile.

 

While Camanchaca hopes the anchovy situation changes during the year, given it considers that it responds to temporary phenomena, it anticipates the same issue would not take place with sardines in the south.

 

"These situations were especially unfortunate because they made it impossible for high fishmeal prices that existed during the first half of the year to be profitable, which was worsened by the smaller scale operation that means that fewer produced units must absorb the fixed costs, with the consequent impact on sales costs," explained the company in its financial report.

 

In the Fishing division, the revenue fell by 8.1%, to €82.386 million (US$111.8 million), and the results changed from a loss of €7.148 million (US$9.7 million) during the first three quarters of 2012, to a loss of €6.78 million (US$9.2 million) up to 30 September, 2013.

 

In the salmon division, revenue increased 46.5%, totalling €126.822 million (US$172.1 million) and the results showed a loss of €10.464 million (US$14.2 million) compared with a loss of €4.864 million (US$6.6 million) in the same period 2012. In the second quarter 91% of the loss occurred while the third quarter closed with a positive result amounting to €4.421 million (US$6 million).

 

Finally, in the harvest division, revenues rose 14%, to €17.244 million (US$23.4 million) in the first nine months of 2013, with a final score equivalent to a loss of €3.242 million (US$4.4 million), that is to say, €2.727 million (US$3.7 million) less than in the same period of 2012.