A NZ King Salmon farm in the Tory Channel. Photo: Supplied to RNZ
New Zealand King Salmon has posted a modest full-year profit, its first in three years, as it started to reduce the mortality of fish and stabilise the business to offset lower sales and rising costs.
Key numbers for the 12 months ended January compared with a year ago:
- Net profit $1.9m vs $73.2m loss*
- Revenue $167.1m vs $174.5m
- Sales volumes 5,837 tonnes vs 7672 tonnes
- Fish mortality cost $25.9m vs $20.8m
- Forecast 2023/24 - operating earnings $21m to $25m; fish harvest about 6600 metric tonnes
- No dividend
* Included $59m in asset and goodwill writedowns
The company said it was seeing the benefits of moves to reset operations including shifting farming away from warmer waters in the Marlborough Sounds, new farming techniques, and harvesting smaller fish.
Acting chief executive Graeme Tregidga said the business was starting to turn around.
"First and foremost we have focused on the health of our fish and the right sizing of the business. We are making good progress and we acknowledge we have much more work to do."
The cost of fish mortality had risen on the previous year, but death rates had fallen significantly in the second half of the year as much of its farming operations moved into cooler waters.
NZ King Salmon had also harvested smaller fish before summer to boost sales volumes, while it raised prices, and sold less in New Zealand to boost product available for export markets, particularly the profitable US.
The company strengthened its balance sheet last year with a $60 million share sale, which had resulted in the company having $15.7m of cash in hand compared with a debt position of $46.7m the year before.
Tregidga said the company was now waiting the resolution of appeals against the resource consent for its Blue Endeavour deep water farming plan.
"Blue Endeavour has the potential to add up to 10,000 metric tonnes of harvest volume in conjunction with our nursery sites when fully developed."