FGV’s 2015 pre-tax profits slips to RM359.3m

Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd’s (FGV) pre-tax profit slipped to RM359.93 million for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2015 from RM957.64 million in 2014.

Revenue, however, rose to RM15.66 billion from RM15.25 billion in the previous year, it said in a filing to Bursa Malaysia today.

For the fourth quarter, the pre-tax profit declined to RM159.22 million from RM174.34 million a year ago, while revenue advanced to RM4.25 billion from RM3.91 billion previously.

In a separate statement, FGV Group president and chief executive officer Mohd Emir Mavani Abdullah said the reduced profit was mainly due to lower crude palm oil (CPO) prices and the weakening ringgit.

He said the CPO price dropped eight percent from RM2,410 per tonne in 2014 to RM2,210 per tonne in 2015, while the US dollar strengthened 20 percent against the ringgit.

“Our overall performance last year was influenced largely by the direction of global palm oil prices as the upstream segment contributed 75 percent to our revenue,” he said.

Mohd Emir said that industry players were expected to continue facing tough times in 2016 due to uncertainty in CPO prices.

“FGV expects CPO to trade between the RM2,200 and RM2,400 per tonne this year.

“We remain committed to our transformation plan and to strengthen our performance during this testing period.

“We have aggressively continued our replanting exercise for the past four years, executed our group-wide cost optimisation (which has seen positive results since September) and expanded our downstream activities to minimise reliance on our upstream business,” he said.

FGV’s announcement comes in the wake of its filing to Bursa Malaysia on Friday that its unit, Felda Global Ventures Downstream Sdn Bhd (FGVD) would be acquiring a 55 percent stake in Zhong Ling Nutri-Oil Holdings Ltd for RM976.3 million.

“We look forward to this earning-accretive deal as this is a strategic buy for FGVD. The group will be able to leverage on Zhong Ling’s over 20 years’ experience and its top 10 position in China's edible oil market of 1.4 billion people,” he said.

FGV plans to cash finance part of the deal through proceeds from the group’s targeted divestment strategy, he said.

At the close today, FGV’s share price stood at RM1.53, down four sen with 5,163,000 shares traded.

- Bernama