Poultry company Jamaica Broilers Group grew its bottom line by one-third at year ending April, amid a double-digit spike in revenue.
The company reported net profit of made $2.27 billion, up from $1.7 billion a year ago. Sales topped $44 billion, up more than 15 per cent from $38 billion.
Vice-president of finance, Ian Parsard, told Gleaner Business that growth was achieved in all three geographical segments led by the United States operations, up 21 per cent, mainly driven by the hatchery assets acquired at the end of financial year 2016. The Jamaica operations increased revenue by 12 per cent, fed by its chicken, feed and baby chick product lines, while the Haiti operations continued its “impressive growth”, up 24 per cent.
“We continue to gain market share of table eggs consumed in that country,” Parsard said.
Jamaica Broilers spent roughly $1.4 billion on what it called biological assets for the year ending April, which fuelled its sales. Parsard said these biological assets included breeder birds and fertile hatching eggs, broiler birds in the Jamaica operations and layer birds in Haiti.
In a breakout of the earnings in each geographic segment last year, Broilers reported that the Jamaica operations earned $2.87 billion from $32.2 billion in revenues; the US operations made $1.29 billion from $13.78 billion in revenues; and other Caribbean operations $943.7 million from $2.12 billion in revenues. The three segments earned $4.9 billion overall, which when adjusted for unallocated corporate expenses, resulted in $3.2 billion in operating profit.
The improved results follow the disposal of Jamaica Broilers’ loss-making ethanol facility JB Terminal Port Esquivel Limited to West Indies Petroleum Limited. The poultry group reported a gain of $39.47 million gain on the sale after factoring foreign exchange movements.
The company closed the year to a larger pool of cash, which nearly doubled from $873 million to $1.59 billion, due in part to higher profit.