Nutreco trading update Q3 2014

• Revenue Q3 2014 € 1,428.9 million; a decrease of 4.1% from Q3 2013 of which -2.2% was due to foreign exchange effects

• Animal Nutrition revenues increased by 2.3% to € 454.9 million. Organic volume effect was +3.2% due to higher sales in mature markets, growth geographies and young animal feed

• Fish Feed revenues of € 639.4 million are 8.2% lower than last year driven by a 5.8% decrease in organic volumes mainly due to significantly lower salmon feed sales to Marine Harvest in Norway. The sales volume growth of fish feed for other species was 5.4%

• Compound Feed & Meat Iberia revenues decreased by 4.4% to € 334.6 million. Organic volume growth was 3.3%. Good progress has been made in increasing sales to customers across various channels

             

• Termination of € 100 million share buy-back programme   

• Outlook: Based on current trading conditions and barring any unforeseen circumstances, Nutreco confirms its outlook: full year 2014 EBITA before exceptional items from continuing operations to be at least equal to last year (2013: € 256.3 million)

Knut Nesse, CEO Nutreco: "The performance in the third quarter is in line with our expectations and reflects organic volume growth in animal nutrition, higher non-salmonid fish feed volumes and volume growth in Iberia. I am very pleased with the appointment of Samson Li as new Managing Director for our Asia business unit. I am confident that he will lead the acceleration of our growth in Asia.

Our Animal Nutrition segment had positive volume growth and improved margins supported by globally branded nutritional solutions. These developments were driven by good performances in both growth geographies and mature markets, as well as certain product categories such as young animal feed.

Our Fish Feed segment had negative volume growth mostly due to lower sales in Norway as a result of lower volumes to Marine Harvest, as anticipated. Our non-salmonid feed volumes grew strongly with a solid contribution from Ecuador. We have a global brand and produce feed in 16 countries for over 60 species. Our Norwegian business represents approximately 10% of total Nutreco operating profit. Norway will always be important from an innovation perspective with the firm intention to be the market leader in salmonid feed. More than 70% of Fish Feed production takes place outside of Norway and we expect this volume to grow further. The volume share in revenues of fish feed for non-salmonid species is now 41% compared with 37% in the same quarter last year. The potential of feed for shrimp, tilapia and other non-salmonid species will continue as fish farming practices improve. This will encourage further demand for higher quality fish feed which we offer due to our leveraging of the innovations already developed for salmon feed.