Online ReporterHIPPO Valley swung from a net debt position of US$8.9 million to a net cash position of US$13.4 million, with all borrowings fully repaid during the year to March 2026.
This comes after the group achieved 15 percent growth in revenue to US$220,8 million from $191.6 million in the same period the prior year.
Operating profit also surged by 337 percent to US$33.6 million from US$7,7 million, while profit for the year grew by 79 percent to US$24.1 million from US$13.4 million in the same period last year.
Hippo Valley reported that net cash from operations rose by 245 percent to US$29,7 million from US$8.7 million.
As a result, a dividend of 1.50 US cents per share was declared, payable on or about July 30, 2026.
“Despite lower revenues, the business achieved a notable turnaround, converting a prior-year operating loss of US$3 million into an operating profit of US$1.1 million.
This recovery was driven by reduced foreign exchange losses and administrative cost savings, which offset fair value losses within the investment property portfolio,” Hippo Valley Estates chief executive officer, Mr Tawanda Masawi, said.
For the 2027 financial year, the group indicated that it will depend more on operational performance and local market demand than on stock releases.
The group indicated that export realisations do not fully cover the fixed cost of private-farmer cane at US$71 per tonne, and that the incremental export volumes therefore contributed positively to cash generation through inventory monetisation, even though the cane was sold at a loss.
In effect, Hippo Valley is selling sugar into export markets at a loss.
Export sugar sales reached 92.518 tonnes in 2026, a 114 percent increase on the prior year’s 43 303 tonnes.
While their contribution to profit is positive in the year because the inventory was already produced and the fixed cost is already sunk, the export business is structurally loss-making at current pricing on an incremental cost basis.
The local market, at 379 319 tonnes and carrying stronger margin realisations, was the profitable engine. The export market is the inventory clearance mechanism that generates cash but erodes margins on every tonne it processes.
