Golden Agri-Resources Q1 profit falls 68% to US$1.9; shares fall nearly 3% in early Tuesday trade

A display of Golden Agri-Resources products is seen at the company's office in Singapore, on Oct 6, 2015. PHOTO: REUTERS

SINGAPORE - Shares of mainboard-listed agribusiness Golden Agri-Resources fell by 2.78 per cent or one Singapore cent to trade at $0.35 as at 9.44am on Tuesday (May 15) - after the company posted a 68 per cent fall in net profit to US$11.9 million for its first quarter ended March 31, 2018, down from US$37.6 million a year ago.

Golden Agri-Resources was among the most active counters on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) in early Tuesday morning trade, with 5.69 million shares having traded hands as at 9.34am. The counter opened at $0.36.

In a filing made to the SGX before market open, Golden Agri-Resources reported that revenue fell by 11.3 per cent to US$1.82 billion for its first quarter, compared to US$2.04 billion in its previous year. This was due mainly to decreases in both palm production and CPO (crude palm oil) prices.

Palm product output for the first quarter of 2018 decreased both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter by 12 and 6 per cents respectively, to about 612,000 tonnes. The lower year-on-year production was attributable to unusually high production last year in relation to the recovery from the El Nino phenomenon in 2015, while the quarter-on-quarter decline was due to seasonality, said Golden Agri-Resources.

The company added that several estates in the southern part of Kalimantan and Sumatra were still impacted by the prolonged drought condition. Coupled with lower CPO prices, Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) for the quarter was weaker at US$95 million.

"However, the margin remained resilient at 28 per cent," Golden Agri-Resources said.

Earnings per share stood at 0.09 US cent, down from last year's 0.29 US cent.

No dividends were announced for the period.

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