nced a 160 percent profit increase for the 2013/14 financial year on the previous 12 months.One driver behind the success of the New South Wales processor is the sale of the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter shares for $99 million after Bega failed in its takeover bid for, ABC Rural reports.
“We have an extraordinarily strong balance sheet with no net debt. No net debt, in fact, cash in the bank,” executive chair Barry Irvin said.
It also included the $25 million allocated to producers as part of the Milk Sustainability and Growth Program.
“The result highlights we have had a revenue growth of 6.5 per cent, mostly on the back of stronger commodity prices and the growth in our infant nutritional business.”
Despite commodity prices falling since the start of the year, Irvin said, “they are coming off very large highs and some of those falls are not unusual in the industry in terms of the timing of the falls.”
There is also the uncertainty of the impact of Russia's sanctions on some Australian agriculture products imposed earlier this month, including dairy.
“We have designed a business model that, while affected, has some capacity to manage through such circumstances as has been demonstrated in the past,” Irvin said.
“There does remain a strong underlying demand for dairy products in Asia. There is a very good base for expansion using the new capacities that we have created.”
