September 19, 2008

South Africa based agriculture services business Afgri Limited achieved an 18.7 percent increase in headline earnings per share on a 65.9 percent increase in revenue from continuing operations till June 2008.

These results reflect two years of poor crops followed by an improved season for agriculture, helped by higher commodity prices, a large corn crop and the ongoing focus on internal efficiencies, according to Afgri CEO John Mooney.

Turnover in Afgri Logistics Services was up 17.2 percent to R273 million for the 16- month reporting period, compared to the R233 million in the 12 months to February 2007.

Headline profit before tax fell by a third to R72 million due to the low carry-over effect of the previous two years of poor corn crops.

Silo volumes improved dramatically from about May 2008 as Afgri started to receive deliveries of this season's corn crop from farmers.

It was a satisfactory period for Afgri Producer Services, with turnover up 51 percent to R5.7 billion, though headline profit before tax declined by 11 percent to R32 million due to a poor performance by the Seed business, which recorded a loss of R33 million due to the large volumes of carry-over seed stock.

It was an excellent trading period for Afgri Products with a 92.8 percent increase in turnover to R3.3 billion and headline profit before tax of R170 million, 24.8 percent up on the previous year.

(US$1=R8.16)