Half Year 2025 Astarta Holding PLC Earnings Call Transcript
Key Points
- ASTARTA Holding NV (WAR:AST) maintained a stable gross margin of 40%, similar to last year, with an improved EBITDA margin of 29% after excluding biological assets remeasurement.
- The company is investing in new projects, including a soybean protein concentrate and a multi-seed crusher, indicating a focus on long-term growth and diversification.
- Positive pricing dynamics in the agricultural segment, particularly for corn and oilseeds, are benefiting the company.
- Cattle farming remains stable with growth in milk production, and the company earns premium pricing for high-quality milk.
- The convergence of Ukrainian and global sugar prices is a positive development, enhancing the competitive position of Ukrainian producers.
- Revenue from agriculture and sugar production decreased due to a lower harvest last year.
- Soybean processing margins are down, with a decrease in soybean meal pricing leading to lower crushing and EBITDA margins.
- Sugar prices have declined, resulting in lower revenues despite maintaining good margin levels.
- The overall headcount in dairy cows is down, although industrial milk production is up.
- The planting area for sugar beet has decreased by 1/5, which could impact future production volumes.
Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for joining the call regarding Astarta's six months results. We started with an overview of our P&L. On the revenue side, we have decreased in agriculture and sugar production, and this is on the basis of lower harvest of last year. We are still in the process of selling last year's harvest, and this year's harvesting campaign is much later in the year. Stable volumes and revenues in soybean processing as well as in cattle farming.
Gross margin retained at 40% at the level of last year, but we have positive development on the selling and distribution costs, and that allowed us to earn a higher EBITDA margin under IFRS. If we exclude biological assets remeasurement, our EBITDA margin is slightly higher than last year, 29%.
Going into the summary cash flows. The focus this year are investment projects that we initiated on the soybean protein concentrate. We have a big investment in the soybean crushing segment. We started works on a new
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