Astarta will improve its revenue and profits — Concorde Capital

Astarta-Kyiv P&L is expectedly weak in 2018 due to low sugar prices this year and the company's poor harvest of the previous year. This is informed by Alexander Paraschiy, Head of Research at Concorde Capital.

"We were expecting some better profit to be reported in 9M18 due to the higher revaluation of Astarta’s new harvest, but this did not happen. Otherwise, the company’s financials are broadly in line with our estimates," he comments.

The analyst noted that Astarta would improve its revenues and profits in the grain segment in the fourth quarter of 2018 and early 2019.

"Still weak sugar prices will unlikely allow the company to show significant improvement in overall profit in the coming quarters," Alexander Paraschiy noted.

Previously the company reported a significant reduction in net profit to EUR 14.5 million or by 80% y-o-y in 9M 2018. EBITDA amounted to EUR 68 million (–39% y-o-y) on the back of depressed margins caused by global surpluses and low commodity prices. Net debt (net of IFRS 16) stood at EUR 191 million as of 30 September 2018.