Bitter wind at Asian Citrus

Goodwill and fair-value write-downs amounting to ¥853m (£85.7m) and ¥924m respectively came on top of an indifferent financial performance from China's largest orange plantation owner. Soured by a poor winter harvest, revenues from the sale of oranges decreased by a fifth. It didn't help that average selling prices of both oranges and processed fruit were lower during the financial year, even as the production yield of the orange crop fell 10 per cent. Direct costs also sprouted due to unfavourable weather conditions.

Unfortunately, things slipped further after the period-end: Rammasun uprooted nearly 220,000 banana trees that had been planted at the Hepu plantation, so there will be no September harvest. The typhoon also plucked a large volume of unripened fruit from the company's existing oranges trees at Hepu, which will result in decreased production yields from the upcoming winter and summer crops.

Prior to these figures, broker Cantor Fitzgerald estimated an underlying asset value of 62.9p a share, including 16p in cash.