Yara Fourth-Quarter Earnings Beat Estimates as Margins Improve
February 08, 2012, 1:27 AM ESTBy Stephen Treloar
Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Yara International ASA, the largest publicly traded nitrogen-fertilizer maker, reported higher-than- estimated profit and raised its dividend as margins improved and the company booked gains from unit sales.
Net income rose to 3.39 billion kroner ($585 million) from 1.56 billion kroner a year earlier, beating the 2.98 million- krone estimate of 17 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Yara declared a dividend of 7 kroner a share, up from 5.5 kroner.
Fertilizer prices have gained over the past year as rising food consumption spurs farmers to plant more crops. Yara’s sales rose 13 percent to 19.6 billion kroner in the quarter as lower sales volumes were balanced by higher margins, Yara said.
“Margins improved compared with last year, more than offsetting the impact of lower sales volumes,” Chief Executive Officer Joergen Ole Haslestad said in the statement. “Crop prices and farm margins remain healthy, and fertilizer deliveries will need to recover to avoid a decline in global grain stocks.”
Yara rose as much as 4.6 percent to 269.3 kroner and was up 3.8 percent as of 9:47 a.m. in Oslo. The stock has risen 11 percent this year.
“Northern Hemisphere fertilizer customers have been reluctant to take positions ahead of spring application, resulting in slow fourth-quarter sales overall,” Haslestad said. Global fertilizer deliveries were down 14 percent from a year earlier, Yara said.
--Editors: Alex Devine, Randall Hackley
To contact the reporter on this story: Stephen Treloar at streloar1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christian Wienberg at cwienberg@bloomberg.net
