Listed agricultural firm Agrinurture Inc. (ANI) on Thursday said it posted a first-quarter consolidated net income of P44.97 million, some 75 percent higher from last year’s P25.64 million on the back of the strong performance of its local and foreign businesses.
“The increase was due to the [hike] in sales in exports, retail and distribution, as well as the consolidation of Fucang’s operations from sale of commodities and real-estate properties,” ANI said in its disclosure.
The exports came from Zongshan Fucang Trade Co. Ltd., one of the company’s subsidiaries. It also acquired 70-percent ownership of Guangzhou Lexian Fruit Industry Co. Ltd., a Chinese company engaged in wholesale trade.
Consolidated sales reached P1.2 billion during the quarter, up 174 percent from last year, ANI said in a regulatory filing.
“For the first three months of 2019, Philippine operations contributed 39 percent, while sales from foreign operations accounted for 61 percent of consolidated sales,” it said.
Of the P1.2-billion sales, the group’s export receipts reached P406.12 million.
The company said exports got a boost from the stable selling prices of banana and coco juice in the international market, constant supply of raw materials and increase in customers, especially in China market.
ANI said it expects to continue increasing its shipments of bananas, mango and beverage products, such as canned coconut water, in the succeeding quarters.
Local distribution sales posted an increase of 3 percent to P32.4 million during the period from P31.6 million last year, mainly due to improvement in operations.
ANI said it was able to post strong gross profit for the quarter even before it had actually participated in the importation of rice.
The company said it intends to participate in the next round of rice importation, as trading was temporarily halted since 2018, pending the approval of the Rice Trade Liberalization Law.
In line with this, ANI entered into a memorandum of agreement with Vietnam Southern Food Corp.—VinaFood II (VinaFood), a state-owned corporation duly designated and assigned by the Vietnam government to export rice and to help achieve food security in Southeast Asia.
Under the agreement, VinaFood agrees to exclusively supply ANI up to 2 million metric tons of long grain rice per year.
Retail and franchising sales, meanwhile, registered an increase of 10 percent to P24.6 million for the first quarter of 2019, from P22.4 million a year ago despite the shutdown of some subperforming outlets in the third and last quarter of 2018.
The management said it is continuously improving the quality of products sold to different outlets, thus the increase in number of customers and franchisees during the period, it said.