Mixed fortunes for MH
Today’s Q4 report reveals that MH Norway produced 67,000 tonnes of salmon at an EBIT/kg of NOK 12.01; MH Canada produced 9,000 tonnes at an EBIT/kg of NOK 3.3; MH Scotland produced 14,000 tonnes at an EBIT of NOK 0.9 per kg; and MH Chile produced 15,000 tonnes at NOK -12.3 per kg.
Their other operations – in Ireland and the Faroe Islands – produced 6,000 tonnes, bringing the Group’s total to 111,000 tonnes for the quarter.
Operational EBIT for the Group was approximately NOK 850 million in Q4 2015 (NOK 1,032 million in Q4 2014), well below the NOK 995m predicted by Nordea, but analysts suggest it’s a good time to buy shares in the group.
Nordea’s Kolbjørn Giskeødegård explains: “There are two main reasons for this deviation; 1) NOK 70m one off write down in UK on the Rosyth processing plant and 2) harvesting volumes came in 4k tonnes lower than guided levels for Q4. The net debt was higher than our estimates, we suspect this is mainly owing to a stronger than expected negative currency impact on their debt. The margins per region shows better than expected EBIT in Norway and Canada, while Chile is even worse than expected and UK dragged down by the one off corresponding to NOK 5 per kilo in reduced EBIT margin in addition to being hurt by a strong GBP in the quarter. All in all the update is on the soft side and on the margin there is a risk for a negative share price reaction from opening in the market today.”
