Ravensdown Reports $95m Profit In 2021/22

Ravensdown’s 2021/22 Annual Results announced today include an overall Group profit of $95M, and an underlying profit of $68M in the core fertiliser business, before taxation and rebate.

Chairman, Bruce Wills called it “one of our best ever results”, achieved in a year dominated by volatile pricing and global supply challenges.

Total fertiliser sold was slightly up at 1.22 million tonnes, and revenue at $922M was up $210M on last year, reflecting the rising price environment that dominated the year.

“The rapidly rising international prices makes fertiliser hard to budget for our farmers. To help them, Ravensdown focussed on product margins and yielded a FY22 group margin percentage lower than last year.

Chief Executive Garry Diack says “Our fundamental belief is that this cash is better in use on-farm than in our hands, and our margin-based pricing approach has proven this to be the case this year.”

“Consistent with our cooperative values we have positioned the balance sheet for another challenging year in 2023 with $347M of stock in store - providing confidence to customers for spring.”

Ravensdown Shipping Services proved its worth, providing a $26M boost to the Group’s bottom-line performance.

Ravensdown’s reputation as the preferred technology partner for farmers and growers was further cemented by the delivery of soil science, precision placement, and GHG technologies. Hawkeye (including automated N-Cap reporting) subscriptions exceeded 6,000 users. EcoPond was formally launched, the potential champion of effluent-based methane gas emission reduction, and a $22M agreement for nitrification inhibitor development was secured with the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Sustainable Food & Fibre Futures (SFF Futures) fund.

Garry Diack says “The volatility of the market is not going away, and we need the capacity to capitalise on procurement pricing opportunities, and we need to continue investment in technological support to reduce New Zealand’s fertiliser footprint. The need for a capital buffer for the increasing risk a cooperative structure faces, compels a conservative approach to shareholder rebate for 2022.”

Given this year’s performance and next year’s challenges, a shareholder rebate of $25 per tonne has been declared.

The year at a glance 2021-22: numbers for 2020-21 in brackets

• Profit from continuing operations before tax, bonus share issue and rebate: $95 million ($52 million).
• Operating cashflow after rebates to shareholders: -$60 million (+$37 million).
• Equity ratios: 64% (81%) before rebate and 62% after rebate (78%).
• Rebate of $25 per tonne to be paid in cash by the end of August for fully paid-up shareholders ($30/t).
• Revenue: $922 million ($712 million).
• $4 million invested in new technology ($4 million) and $6 million supporting R&D ($6 million).

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