USA: Cargill reports first-quarter fiscal 2007 earnings

Cargill reported October 12 net earnings of US$500 million for the 2007 first quarter ended Aug. 31, in line with last year’s record first quarter of US$504 million.

“We are delighted with Cargill’s performance in the first three months,” said Warren Staley, Cargill chairman and chief executive officer. “June through August was a volatile period in many of the markets we serve. By drawing on the diversity of Cargill’s product and service strengths and our team’s ability to manage supply chains and price risk for customers and the company, we realized a strong start to the new fiscal year.”

Cargill’s first-quarter results were balanced among its five global business segments. Earnings were led by food ingredients and applications, and followed closely by proportional contributions from the origination and processing, risk management and financial, and industrial segments. With respect to growth, the food ingredients and applications, origination and processing, agriculture services and industrial segments all increased earnings from the first quarter a year ago.

As announced in July and completed in late September, Horizon Milling G.P., a partnership between Cargill and Inver Grove Heights, Minn.-based CHS, purchased the Canadian grain-based food service and industrial businesses from a subsidiary of The J. M. Smucker Company. The acquisition enables Horizon Milling to expand operations into Canada, where it will seek to better serve the country’s food service, bakery and food manufacturing markets with flour, oat and baking mix products.

Cargill Malt Eurasia supplies quality malt to brewing markets in Europe, with exports to Asia, Latin America and Africa. Headquartered in St. Germain en Laye, near Paris, its network of five malt facilities in Belgium, France, Germany, Holland and Spain represent a total malting capacity of 426,000 MT per annum. In Russia, Malt Eurasia is developing malting barley origination and plans to start constructing a new malt plant in Efremov (Tula region) in September 2005.

13 October, 2006