Fishing conglomerate Oceana‚ which is set to announce a deal in the US shortly‚ saw its share plunging more than 14% on Friday after reporting a drop in interim earnings to end March.

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The company‚ though‚ netted a much bigger profit haul from its key Lucky Star canned fish brand. Results released at the weekend showed Oceana's canned fish and fishmeal division made a 13% increase in turnover to R1.58bn. This amounted to a 34% hike in operating profit of R167m. Although the canned fish and fishmeal division accounts for more than 60% of Oceana's revenue‚ the company still reported its bottom line down 11% after the horse mackerel segment was hampered by a scarcity of fish in local waters.
Horse mackerel has‚ in recent years‚ been a strong performer for Oceana. But this time the hake and horse mackerel segment saw profits down a hefty 46% to R108m‚ with Oceana CEO Francois Kuttell reporting the company incurred additional costs in having to buy in additional horse mackerel to maintain appropriate overall quota requirements.
More encouraging‚ however‚ was that Kuttell reported significantly higher profits from Oceana's West Coast rock lobster division - a beneficiary of the weaker rand as the bulk of the catch is exported.
Turnover from the lobster‚ squid and French fries segment was slightly down at R122m‚ but operating profits more than doubled to R58m.
Rezco portfolio manager Rob Spanjaard - who holds Oceana in his Value Trend Fund - believes the company could finish the full financial year with profits up by as much as 15%.
"Oceana is a well-run company and the management has shown it delivers the goods over the longer term‚" he says.
While Oceana offered no forward-looking comments in its interim commentary‚ directors showed some confidence in second half trading by pegging the dividend at 106c a share.
Source: BDpro via I-Net Bridge