A Chinese based fishery firm is exiting cattle-farming to focus on aquaculture and fish-trading after flagging a loss of USD 12.1 million (EUR 11.01 million) for 2019.
Listed on the U.S. over-the-counter market, Sino Agro Foods is blaming the loss on reorganization of company assets. The losses projected for 2019 are “mostly non-cash items, stemming from writing down biological assets and inventories as part of the new subsidiary lease and subcontracting arrangements,” said Sino Agro in a statement to investors.
Sino Agro, which was delisted from the Oslo Merkur stock exchange last year due to violations of the exchange’s disclosure rules, had previously invested heavily in local cattle-farming – until recently, it operated a 5,000-acre site in Qinghai Province in northwestern China. But it sold its dairy business in 2009 to focus on cattle-fattening and production of beef products, as well as the cultivation of fish and shrimp.
“The company now operates as an engineering, technology, and consulting company specializing in building and operating agriculture and aquaculture farms in China,” according to a 2019 prospectus of company activities published for a share issue.
Now, Sino Agro appears to be committing even further to aquaculture.
“The company will now focus on its primary businesses, ones with better potential growth profiles; namely, fisheries and trading,” it said in its investors note.
Sino Agro owns and leases out the rights to its proprietary A Power Recirculating Aquaculture System technology, which it markets as “APRAS,” for indoor fish farming, but has struggled to meet very bullish projections for the prawn output of its facilities. The firm has said it’s in negotiation with global companies to develop aquaculture projects in India and Malaysia, and announced a high-profile project in Angola in 2018.
In its note to investors, the company signaled a delay in releasing its 2019 Form 10-K Annual Report – originally due 14 May – due to the coronavirus. Specifically, its auditors had difficulty visiting company sites in mainland China due to travel restrictions.
“COVID-19 has caused severe disruptions in transportation and limited access to the company’s facilities resulting in limited support from its staff and professional advisors, including our Hong Kong-based audit firm,” a company statement noted. It pledged to deliver the annual report by the end of May.
Photo courtesy of Sino Agro Foods
