adminfor the interim period ended September 30, 2011.
Tongaat, South Africa’s largest sugar grower and miller, controls 52 percent in Hippo Valley Estates through Triangle Sugar Corporation.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed firm attributed the surge in profits to a 10 percent increase in production expected from local operations.
In its trade update for the six months, group profits from operations are expected to increase 25,7 percent to R1,047 billion.
Zimbabwean operations have contributed R364 million of the profits. The group said excluding the R130 million gain in the prior period in respect of the pension fund employer surplus account allocation, the increase in profit from operations is 25,7 percent.
During the period revenue increased 27,6 percent to R6,027 billion compared with R4,724 billion recorded during the same period last year.
Profit from operations also includes profit from the Mozambique sugar operations of R267 million, the South African agriculture, milling and refining operations of R54 million and the various other sugar and downstream activities of R172 million.
Profit from the starch operations amounts to R167 million and profit from the land conversion and development operations is R62 million.
Total net profit, before minority interests, is expected to be R597 million for the six months to 30 September 2011. Headline earnings are expected to be R501 million for half year, compared to the R507
million earned in the same period last year.
During the period under review, Tongaat’s total sugar production for the 2011/12 year is expected to increase by 14 percent above the 1 million tonnes produced in 2010/11, with more than 80 percent of the season’s cane having been milled by the end of last month. In South Africa, sugar production is expected to be 8 percent above that of last year.
“The gap between the hectares under cane and the hectares milled is unusually large, inter alia, as a result of the significant cane root planting following last year’s drought and the 15 months required to first harvest,” the company said.
Sugar production for the year in Zimbabwe is expected to be 10 percent above last year and in Mozambique it should increase by some 45 percent.
During the period the firm provided a US$3,5 million input scheme for small-scale sugar farmers in Chiredzi to increase production.
The scheme is expected to increase sugar production from 50 tonnes per hectare to 100 tonnes.
Online Reporter