BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - CropEnergies AG, affiliated to German sugar producer Suedzucker AG (SUEZF.PK), reported that its EBITDA for the first-quarter of the current financial year 2017/18 improved by 18 percent to 33.1 million euros from the previous year's 28.0 million euros.
Operating profit improved 21 percent to 23.5 million euros from prior year's 19.4 million euros.
Income from operations, as the sum of operating profit, earnings from entities consolidated at equity and special items, grew distinctly by 48 percent to 23.2 million euros from 15.7 million euros in the prior year.
As already announced on 19 June 2017, revenues increased by 38 percent to 231 million euros from 168 million euros last year. The main reasons for the growth were the significantly increased sales volumes of bioethanol as well as food and animal feed products.
In the first three months of the financial year 2017/18, a total of 280,000 (previous year: 203,000) cubic meters of bioethanol were produced. This also led to an increase of the production of food and animal feed products. The increase of the production volumes is mainly due to the restart of the bioethanol plant in Wilton, UK, in July 2016.
CropEnergies had already raised the forecast for the financial year 2017/18 on 19 June 2017 and now expects revenues in a range of 850 million euros to 900 million euros for the whole financial year 2017/18. Operating profit is expected in a range of 50 million euros to 90 million euros. This corresponds to an EBITDA between 90 million euros and 130 million euros which will lead to another improvement of the financial position. In the previous year, revenues reached 802 million euros and the operating profit 98 million euros.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX