Global agribusiness giant Bunge’s second quarter earnings dropped due to weak processing margins, World Grain reported.
The company’s stock price was down by almost 10% to a low of US$103.29 on the New York Stock Exchange on 31 July, the report said.
“(We) delivered solid adjusted EBIT reflecting improved margin environments in some regions during the second half of the quarter, partially offset by more muted conditions in others,” Bunge president and CEO Gregory A Heckman was quoted as saying in a conference call with analysts on 31 July.
In the second quarter ended 30 June, Bunge posted net income of US$70M, down sharply from US$622M in the previous year’s second quarter.
Adjusted earnings dropped from US$3.72/share in the previous year’s second quarter to US$1.73/share.
In Bunge’s Agribusiness, EBIT was down from US$785M to US$138M while volumes increased from 18.26M tonnes to 20.58M tonnes.
Within the segment, Bunge said higher processing results in European soyabean and softseed crushing were more than offset by lower results in North and South America and Asia.
In the Refined and Specialty Oils segment, second-quarter EBIT dropped from US$217M to US$185M.
Net sales fell from US$3.6bn to US$3.12bn, while volumes were up from 2.21M tonnes to 2.3M tonnes.
Bunge said stronger results in Asia were more than offset by lower results in North and South America and Europe.
Companywide, over the first six months of the fiscal year Bunge posted net income of US$314M down 75% from US$1.25bn in the same period of the previous year.
