Origin Enterprises’ revenues decline to €428m

Third-quarter revenues at Dublin-based agri-services group Origin Enterprises fell by 5.2% on a year-on-year basis to €428 million.

Despite lower activity levels and adverse weather conditions, during the three months to the end of April, Origin’s management said, yesterday, that revenue performance had been “solid” in what is a seasonally important quarter.

Lower sales in Origin’s Britain-based agronomy services business were seen due to poor weather, but its performance in Poland remained strong.

For the same quarter, in its last financial year, Origin reported revenues of €451.6m.

Despite the drop in revenue, yesterday’s trading update from the group was largely upbeat.

Management pointed out that its agri-business did show a pick-up in fortunes during the last month of the quarter.

Furthermore, for the first nine months of its current year — which runs to the end of July — the company generated revenues of €995.7m; up by 3.8% on a year-on-year basis.

And, management added that the group’s financial position “remains strong” and that it is comfortable with analyst market expectations of adjusted fully diluted earnings per share — for the full year — of around 48.5c.

“Significant catch-up activity on-farm is expected during the final quarter of the group’s financial year. The higher profits from our associates and joint ventures, in the current year, will offset the weather impact on our agri-services business, where full-year profits are expected to be lower than budget, but in line with last year,” yesterday’s statement said.

Back in March, the company — which is nearly 70% owned by Irish-Swiss bakery giant, Aryzta — said that its various joint-venture partnerships helped drive first-half growth, with profit for the six months to the end of January up by over 4% and revenues up by nearly 12%.

Origin’s share price was up by almost 11% yesterday at €5.30.