Camellia (CAM) has said it wants to focus on its agricultural business, but this has produced mixed results so far. Ongoing labour strikes in India caused the company to lose its entire second flush of Darjeeling tea, while an oversupply of other teas in India and Bangladesh pushed prices down significantly. Elsewhere, droughts in Malawi and South Africa caused volumes of macadamia nuts to fall by more than a third.
That said, these disappointments were offset by improving tea prices in Kenya and Malawi, as well as in some other crops such as navel oranges in California and soya in Brazil. Revenue in the agriculture division was up by more than a quarter to £96.1m, although trading profit fell from £7.3m last year to £1.5m reflecting the divergent performance across various geographies and crops.
On home soil, chief executive Tom Franks said demand for chips and potatoes had been “enormous”, helping to boost sales in the food services division by more than a fifth to £17.8m. But a weak oil price continued to weigh on the engineering business, where revenue fell around 6 per cent to £9.5m.
Analysts at Panmure Gordon expect pre-tax profit of £21.5m in the year to December 2017, giving EPS of 121.2p, compared with £26.5m and a loss per share of 387.4p in 2016.
| CAMELLIA (CAM) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 10,530p | MARKET VALUE: | £295m | |
| TOUCH: | 10,450-10,530p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 11,600p | LOW: 7,900p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 1.3% | PE RATIO: | 91 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 12,557p* | NET CASH: | £93.8m | |
| Half-year to 30 Jun | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2016 | 100 | 6.8 | 29 | 35 |
| 2017 | 124 | 1.9 | 532 | 37 |
| % change | +23 | -72 | +1735 | +6 |
| Ex-div: | 7 Sep | |||
| Payment: | 6 Oct | |||
| *Includes intangible assets of £224m, or 7,982p a share | ||||
