Tough times for livestock firms

In the first quarter of 2023, Hoa Phat Agricultural Development JSC saw its net revenue shed 2.4 per cent on-year to just over $69 million with post-tax profit showing a loss of over $5 million, compared to a loss of $2.4 million a year ago, making this the largest loss-incurring quarter since the company began operations in 2015.

Hoa Phat Group operates in four segments of agricultural development, animal feed, pig breeding, cattle breeding and poultry. 2020 was a peak time in the company’s operation, when its revenue surpassed $456.5 million and post-tax profit reached $74 million. However, since mid-2021, Hoa Phat Group’s agribusiness revenue has retreated, with last year reaping just $291 million in revenue and nearly $1 million in post-tax profit.

BAF Vietnam Agriculture JSC is no exception to the overall trend as its consolidated financial statement for the first quarter shows the company saw $35.5 million in revenue and $170,000 in post-tax profit, down 46.8 per cent and 95.5 per cent on-year, respectively. The company focuses its investment on raising pigs, supplying the market with 280,000 pigs per year, and has attributed its worst-performing quarter since it went public in 2021 to the long-term fall in pork prices.

Truong Sy Ba, chairman of BAF, said, "We are pursuing a sustainability model of consumption that has yet to generate expected results amid market volatilities and pork prices falling far below expectations."

Several other major players in the livestock sector also struggled last quarter as Dabaco Group posted a record loss of $13.9 million compared to a nearly $3.4 million loss in the previous quarter. The company supplied a total of 1 million pigs to the market in 2022, and it aims to supply 2.5 million per year by 2025.

Based on the unaudited first quarter financial statement of Nova Consumer, despite posting a 15 per cent hike in revenue, counted post-tax losses of $330,400, marking the company's first loss-making quarter since conducting its initial public offering last March. Nova counted more than $565,200 million in profit for the same period last year.

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