Press

1st – 3rd Quarter of 2004/05 The Group’s positive development during the first half continued during the third quarter of the current 2004/05 financial year.  Sales revenues were € 47.1 million or 20.2 per cent up on the same quarter of the previous financial year at € 280.5 million, and sales revenues during the first three quarters advanced by € 13.5 percent to € 753.0 million (2003/04: € 663.2 million).  Profit from operating activities during the first three quarters was 31.3 per cent up on the year at € 82.3 million (2003/04: € 62.7 million).  Consolidated earnings in the nine months ended 30 November 2004 were 77.8 per cent up on the year at € 72.9 million (2003/04: € 41.0 million), as a result of which per-share earnings in the first three quarters advanced to € 6.61 (2003/04: € 3.72). AGRANA delivered the following figures during the first three quarters of the current financial year and in the same period of 2003/04:

Sugar Segment

AGRANA Stärke GmbH was split off from AGRANA Zucker und Stärke Gesellschaft mbH as of 9 September 2004.  Since that time, the Sugar Division has been trading under the name AGRANA Zucker GmbH.EU Sugar Market Regime During the meeting of EU agriculture ministers on 22 November 2004, the new EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel announced that a legislative proposal for the reform of the EU sugar CMO will be forthcoming in April or May 2005.  Consequently, the reform is unlikely to enter into force before 1 July 2006.  The EU Commission will be lodging its appeal against the WTO Panel’s report on the WTO conformity of C sugar exports and ACP sugar reexports in January 2005, so a decision can be expected in April 2005.  It can then be incorporated into the legislative proposal. Raw Materials and HarvestsGroup-wide, 796,700 tonnes of sugar (2003: 616,000 tonnes) will have been extracted from 5.1 million tonnes of beet (2003: 4.2 million tonnes) by the end of the 2004 campaign, and 183,200 tonnes of white sugar (2003: 139,000 tonnes) will have been refined from imported unrefined sugar in Romania by the end of the 2004/05 financial year, giving total sugar production of nearly 980,000 tonnes (2003: 775,000 tonnes).  That is 205,000 tonnes more than in the previous year, when harvests were poor because of the drought.

 

Specialities Segment

Starch Division - This year, the Austrian Starch Division processed 204,000 tonnes of starch potatoes (2003: 149,500 tonnes) into 47,900 tonnes of potato starch (2003: 32,500 tonnes), thus making full use of its EU starch quota. The Aschach and Hörbranz maize starch factories processed 243,100 tonnes of maize during the first three quarters (2003/04: 231,700 tonnes), 80,800 tonnes of which was processed fresh from the harvest (2003/04: 47,300 tonnes).  The Hungrana maize starch factory processed 276,800 tonnes of maze in the same period. In the absence of positive and sustainable scenarios for its continuation, production at the maize starch factory in Hörbranz will cease during the first half of 2005.

Fruit Division
AGRANA took over a second block of shares in Financière Atys S.A. in December 2004 and currently has a 50 per cent stake as a result.  For its part, Atys S.A. took over Dirafrost Frozen Fruits Industries N.V., Belgium, in August 2004.  Dirafrost is a supplier of frozen fruits, fruit salads and fruit purees.  The necessary competition authority approvals were granted in October 2004.
In October 2004, AGRANA subsidiary Vallø Saft A.S. signed the agreements for the acquisition of the German Wink Group based in Bingen.  The necessary competition authority approvals were granted in December 2004.  The agreements were put into effect by the signing of the closing declarations on 3 January 2005.

Outlook for the 2004/05 Financial Year
In the light of the Group’s healthy development, we are confident that full-year sales revenues during the 2004/05 financial year will grow by 15 per cent to approximately € 996 million.  We expect full-year profit from operating activities to advance by 17 per cent to roughly € 90 million, and thanks to a very low taxation ratio, consolidated earnings should be slightly more than 30 per cent up on the year.