OSLO (dpa-AFX) – The fertilizer company Yara (Yara International ASA) more than compensated for the burden of production cuts and increased gas costs with higher sales prices in the third quarter. The shareholders are to participate in the business development with an additional dividend of 10 Norwegian kroner (0.96 euros), which is to be paid out in the final quarter, as the company announced on Thursday. That’s a third of the regular dividend paid out in May. In addition, further distributions and share buybacks would be considered.
Yara’s third-quarter revenue grew nearly 39 percent year-on-year to $6.2 billion, the company said on Thursday. Adjusted for special effects, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) exceeded the average analyst estimate with an increase of almost 31 percent to one billion dollars.
Bottom line, shareholders accounted for a profit of $400 million, up from a loss of $143 million a year ago due to impairments.
Looking ahead, the industry colleague of the German fertilizer company K+S (K+S) expects demand to remain strong, even though some farmers used less fertilizer in view of the high prices. At the same time, supply remains tight and inventories in Europe are at historically low levels.
Yara – like other companies – had significantly reduced the energy-intensive production of the fertilizer raw material ammonia over the course of the year due to the sharp rise in gas prices. For the final quarter, for example, the group management calculates gas costs that are likely to be more than half a billion dollars higher than in the last quarter of the previous year./mis/ngu/stk
Leverage must be between 2 and 20
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