Silver Fern Farms' profit rises 50 per cent

Silver Fern Farms chief executive Simon Limmer. Photo / Supplied

Silver Fern Farms has increased its net profit after-tax by more than 50 per cent, a "very pleasing" result given the current disrupted environment, chief executive Simon Limmer says.

Yesterday, the Dunedin-headquartered meat company released its full-year results to December 31 2021, reporting a net profit after tax of $103.8 million, up from $65.4m the year before.

Silver Fern Farms Co-operative, which jointly owns Silver Fern Farms with Chinese-owned Shanghai Maling Aquarius, also increased its after-tax profit to $51.5 million, up from $31.6 million in 2020.

Silver Fern Farms' revenue was $2.7 billion, up from $2.5 billion the year before, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda), including share-of-associate earnings, were up from $125.7m to $179.7m.

Last year was another challenging one as global disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic continued, Limmer said.

Navigating various issues, such as container supply, labour shortages and Covid-19 outbreaks, had become the new normal for the company and Limmer did not expect the problems to go away any time soon.

"It's satisfying to get 2021 behind us, but 2022 is more of the same with added complexity."

Strong global prices for red meat were helping to mask some of those complexities.

Demand and pricing for red meat across the company's key markets were well above five-year averages, Limmer said.

"Despite all the disruption, we are still getting good results for our farmers, which is very pleasing."

Limmer hoped New Zealand's borders starting to reopen would help ease some of the labour shortage.

Silver Fern Farms had worked with the Government and Ministry of Primary Industries to fast-track some staff into the country, the first of whom arrived last week from the Pacific Islands.

The reopening would also allow the company's staff to start to travel again and work with its clients in key markets.

Silver Fern Farms had benefited from having staff in its key markets to help maintain relationships.

"The ability to get back out travelling again is going to be really important," Limmer said.

Eligible shareholders would receive a 100 per cent imputed dividend of 12.9c per share, payable to all ordinary and rebate shareholders.

A 100 per cent imputed patronage reward of 12.1c per share would be paid on qualifying shares to supplying shareholders based on supply during 2020.