For the 2017 financial year, kiwifruit marketer Zespri International has indicated an after-tax profit of $25 million to $30 million, excluding revenue from the release of 400 hectares of Gold3 licence being tendered next month.
That additional revenue will likely be materially significant to the 2016/17 corporate profit, it said in a statement to the Unlisted trading platform.
Zespri also released a broad first indicative projection for orchard gate returns (OGR) for the 2016/17 season just underway, reflecting the significant uncertainty at this stage.
The forecast OGR for the mainstay Zespri Green variety is $4.20 to $5.20 per tray which compares to a February forecast for the 2015/16 season of $4.94 which will be confirmed next month.
Zespri Green14 and Zespri Organic are forecast at $6 to $7 per tray for this season compared to $6.94 and $6.98 respectively for the previous season.
Zespri Gold shows the most potential upside with a $7.80 to $8.80 per tray OGR compared to a forecast $7.96 per tray for the 2015/16 season.
The Zespri board had already increased its profit forecast for the March 31, 2016 financial year by $13 million to a range of $32 million to $35 million after being assured it no longer needed to hold a provision in its accounts relating to the under-declaration of customs duties by a Chinese subsidiary between 2008 and 2010.
Zespri still has 1.7 million trays of kiwifruit on hold after it was potentially affected by an oil leak in packaging at a Chinese supplier earlier this month.
A spokesman said it was still assessing measures and the feasibility of inspecting, re-checking and re-working each of the potentially affected trays or simply ditching them.
The amount of affected kiwifruit in the precautionary hold represents around 1 percent of its total forecast volume of 140 million trays for the 2016 season.
