Cape Town, South Africa-based seafood company Oceana has projected an increase in its base earnings per share and headline earnings per share for the year ending 30 September, 2020, according to unaudited results set to be released later this year.
A circular that the company sent to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange – in fulfilment of the requirement for publication of a trading statement “whenever there is a reasonable degree of certainty that the financial results for the period to be reported will differ by at least 20 percent from reported financial results for the previous corresponding period” – Oceana says its basic earnings for the year increased between 21 percent to 26 percent. That is an equivalent of ZAR 6.39 (USD 0.39, EUR 0.33) and ZAR 6.66 (USD 0.41, EUR 0.35). That amount is up from the ZAR 5.28 (USD 0.33, EUR 0.28) for the corresponding period in 2019.
Additionally, the company’s basic headline earnings per a share has gone up between 13 percent and 18 percent this year to between ZAR 6.15 (USD 0.38, EUR 0.32) and ZAR 6.42 (USD 0.40, EUR 0.33) compared to ZAR 5.44 (USD 0.34, EUR 0.28) for the previous year.
“This positive financial performance, in a tough economic climate, has been mainly achieved through sustained demand and firm pricing across most of our product categories which are predominately consumed in-home, supported by production efficiencies and improved overall fish landings, partially offset by COVID-19 related disruptions to fishing operations and related costs,” Oceana said in the statement on the results, set to be released on 3 December, 2020.
Furthermore, during the COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa, Oceana was listed among the country’s essential service providers, hence it was able to keep its operations running under observance of the stringent COVID-19 regulations.
In 2019, Oceana’s revenue from its Africa operations increased by 1 percent “underpinned by volume growth of 8 percent in canned fish and 8 percent increase in horse mackerel and hake pricing.”
However, the growth “was negatively impacted by a decline in South African fishmeal and oil revenues due to lower landings.”
The company’s Africa operations posted a 2.5 percent surge in operating profit in 2019 before other operating items arising from the volume and price growth in canned fish, growth in pricing for horse mackerel and hake, the impact of operational efficiencies on production costs.”
Oceana further attributed the increase to “favorable movement in net foreign exchange gains” from ZAR 19 million (USD 1.1 million, EUR 995,000) in 2018 to ZAR 30 million (USD 1.8 million, EUR 1.5 million) in 2019.
Photo courtesy of Oceana Group
