KUCHING: Integrated poultry firm CCK Consolidated Holdings Bhd’s gross margins have been affected by the strengthening of the US dollar to the ringgit in the first six months of 2019 (H1-2019). The US dollar strengthened by about 4.66 percent from H1-2018, reducing the group’s gross margins to 20.1 percent from 21.2 percent during the same period. As a result, CCK’s group net profit was adversely affected, down to RM16.3 million from RM18.6 million during the same period while group revenue stayed flat at RM320.6 million, albeit with a marginal increase from RM320.2 million in H1-2019.
The group has five business segments: poultry segment (involved in rearing and production of poultry products); prawn s e g m e n t (rearing and production of prawn and seafood products); food service segment (supply and trading of food products and related services); retail segment (trading of coldstorage products and corporate segment (provision of management services).
In H1-2019, the retail segment was the main contributor to group revenue, generating about RM241.9 million, followed by the poultry segment (RM60.5 million), prawn segment (RM10.2 million) and food service segment (RM8 million). In terms of market, Malaysia led with group revenue of RM263.9 million in H12019, followed by Indonesia (RM51.97 million) and Japan (RM2.5 million).
Other contributing markets to group revenue are Australia (RM1.13 million). Hong Kong (RM621,000), Japan (RM173,000) and Vietnam (RM315,000). As compared to Q1-2019, CCK said revenue improved by about six percent in Q2-2019.
“The retail segment led the way with an increase in revenue of 7.48 percent. Amongst the contributory factors for the increase in revenue was the Gawai festival in Sarawak and Hari Raya Aidifitri both in Malaysia and Indonesia. “The group ended the quarter with 58 stores as opposed to 57 stores in the previous quarter,” the company said in notes to its financials. In H1-2019, CCK group acquired assets for RM11.5 million.
Meanwhile, Sarawak Oil Palms Bhd (SOP) has reported a dismal performance in Q22019 which saw a sharp fall in group revenue and net profit to RM590.2 million and RM1.68 million from RM774.9 million and RM10.5 million respectively in Q22018. Earnings per share was down to 0.29 sen from 1.85 sen. SOP said the 23.8 p e r c e n t reduction i n g r o u p revenue was mainly due to lower palm products’ average realised prices, coupled with lower volume of palm products transacted during the quarter under review.
In H1-2019, the Miri-based company’s group revenue plunged to RM1.33 billion from RM1.68 billion or by 20.7 percent while group net profit was down to RM10 million from RM36.6 million or a hefty RM26.6 million or by 73 percent. “The performance of the group would continue to be driven by the FFB (fresh fruit bunch) production and palm products’ price movement which is dependent on the world edible oil market, movement of the ringgit and economic situation,” said SOP on prospects going forward.