Despite formidable operational and market constraints imposed on the seafood industry by the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa-based seafood company Oceana Group has posted an exceptional performance for the period ended 30 September, 2020.
The group’s latest financial statements indicate the company’s revenue increased 9 percent to ZAR 8.3 billion (USD 557 million, EUR 459 million). A combination of factors such as booming in-home consumption, increased sales of fishmeal, and a government decision to classify Oceana – which is Africa’s largest fishing company – and other seafood companies as essential service providers, allowing operation during the debilitating economic lockdowns, enabled the company to achieve the performance, which includes an increase in operating profit by 18 percent to ZAR 1.4 billion (USD 93.9 million, EUR 77.5 million).
Furthermore, Oceana reported an after-tax profit growth of 26 percent despite the “challenging economic conditions, logistics and supply constraints compounded by COVID-19 restrictions and protocols.”
For Oceana, the 2020 performance has triggered optimism in the company’s management team, which projects a medium-term period in which its “diverse operations will continue to offer risk mitigation and our product offerings remain attractive despite the continued effects of the pandemic.”
“We will look to drive volume growth, particularly in the canned fish and fishmeal segments,” the company said.
But even with the otherwise positive performance, Oceana says it is moving forward with caution, especially because of the continuing impacts of COVID-19.
“We will continue to evaluate the group's prospects against this backdrop, and in particular the possible emergence of a vaccine when evaluating future capital allocation and dividend decisions,” Oceana said.
Whereas Oceana experienced COVID-19-related disruptions that led the loss of nearly 10 percent of the company’s harvesting time equivalent to ZAR 75 million (USD 5 million EUR 4.1 million) – particularly in the U.S.A. and Namibia – the companyachieved a 15.4 percent surge in headline earnings after minority interests and adjustments to ZAR 734 million (USD 49.2 million, EUR 40.6 million).
“The increase in profit attributable to minority interests to ZAR 56 million [USD 3.7 million EUR 3.1 million] is primarily driven by the improved performance in the South Africa fishmeal and hake segments, which directly benefited black-owned minority shareholders in these segments,” Oceana said.
Oceana, which specializes in procuring, processing, marketing, and distribution of canned fish, fishmeal, and fish oil, in addition to catching horse mackerel, hake, lobster, and squid, has singled out the strong performance of its horse mackerel operations for shoring up the company’s financial performance in the midst of a global pandemic. This is in addition to the increasing demand for fresh fish protein that for the second half of the year “contributed to strong pricing particularly in Southern Africa.”
Photo courtesty of Oceana Group
