Company update: Nutreco totals EBITA at 241 million euro

Wout Dekker, CEO Nutreco: "The past year was important in the history of Nutreco for several reasons. It was the final year of our Rebalancing for Growth strategy and we achieved targets financially. We made advances in our nutritional solutions – creating value for our customers -, reached sustainability objectives and we made commitments for the future. The excellent result in 2011, with a EUR 241 million EBITA, means Nutreco exceeded the target to double the 2006 EBITA of EUR 115 million. In November the Executive Board presented the strategy update ‘Ambition 2016 – driving sustainable growth’. At the same time we announced our intention to sell the Hendrix compound feed business to ForFarmers, where it can be a core activity with a leading market position.

Our Aquaculture division delivered a record operating result due to strong global volume growth, especially in Chile. In October 2011 we confirmed the completion of the acquisition of Shihai fish and shrimp feed company in Southwest China, which provides us with access to the largest aquaculture feed market in the world.

Our animal nutrition and meat business benefited from our market leadership and achieved higher results in challenging market circumstances. We continue focusing on premix and feed specialties, while preserving our market leadership in our compound feed and meat business.

‘How to feed nine billion people in 2050 sustainably’ was the theme for a highly successful Agri Vision 2011 conference with 375 delegates from 37 countries. Using the issues raised and views expressed at Agri Vision and AquaVision conferences, together with a review of opinions from a wide range of stakeholders, we developed a ‘Sustainability Vision 2020’, which will be published on 14 February 2012. It describes the issues facing our industry, the way Nutreco is addressing them and our specific long-term ambitions.

This focus on our strategy, priorities, and execution, coupled with our excellent results in 2011 and our strong balance sheet, have prepared Nutreco for sustainable growth in the years ahead."

Strategy
Nutreco presented the strategy update ‘Ambition 2016 – driving sustainable growth’ in November 2011. The prospect of feeding nine billion people sustainably in 2050 was a main driver, alongside our growth ambitions. Rising incomes for example in Latin America, Russia, China and Southeast Asia add to the challenge as people switch to protein rich foods such as meat, fish, milk and eggs. These trends place Nutreco at an essential link in the feed-to-food value chain. The expertise of Nutreco is to add value to ingredients by converting them into safe, nutritious feed for animals and to develop models and management insights that enable farmers to be more productive while reducing environmental impact.

Nutreco describes the challenge as Feeding the Future. In our sectors, we need to double food production and do so sustainably: doubling production while halving the footprint. Efficiency in feeds, together with attention to ecology and to the economics of farming, is inherent in the name Nutreco. Chosen in 1994 when the company was formed, it stands for nutrition, ecology and economy.

Nutreco’s ambition for 2016 builds on the existing strategy to grow and improve profitability by innovative and sustainable feed solutions for our customers. This is to be achieved by focusing on Premix, Feed Specialties and Fish Feed and by expanding into the growth geographies of Latin America, Russia, China and Southeast Asia.

The ability of Animal Nutrition to execute the strategy is enhanced by Application and Solution Centres (ASC) in Europe (based in the Netherlands) and North America (based in Canada). The ASCs link Nutreco’s nutritional and technical know-how and innovation power in serving its customers’ needs. Together with more effective Go-to-market strategies this will enable Nutreco to deliver innovations to customers in existing and new geographies quickly and effectively.

Skretting, Nutreco’s global aquaculture feed business, will further capitalise on its leading fish feed positions and on the know-how of the Skretting Aquaculture Research Centre for innovative and sustainable feed solutions. The portfolio of activities will be further expanded into new geographies and feed for more fish species and for shrimp.

In the mature compound feed markets in Europe and North America, Nutreco will participate in the consolidation of the industry. Strong market leadership positions and operational excellence in compound feed and meat business are the basis for good performance.

Attention to sustainability was sharpened in 2011 and good progress made, culminating in the preparation of the Sustainability Vision 2020. The paper sets objectives for progress in Ingredients, Operations, Nutritional solutions and Commitment for the next eight years.

Investing in growth
The acquisition in 2011 of the Shihai fish and shrimp feed company in China is in line with the strategy to capitalise on Nutreco’s leading fish feed positions by expanding in new regions and into feed for other species. It provides a production base in the world’s number 1 aquaculture feed market, which is growing in line with demand in China. Shihai owns a new plant with a capacity of approximately 150,000 tonnes and capable of operating to Skretting specifications.

Equally, Nutreco invests in organic growth. In January 2011, Nutreco announced an investment in Russia of approximately EUR 20 million to build a factory to produce young animal feed, concentrates and premixes for ruminants, pigs and poultry. It is scheduled to become operational in the second half of 2012 and will strengthen Nutreco’s market position in Russia.

In the Netherlands, the renewed plant of Selko Feed Additives was opened in 2011. This investment doubled capacity and brought the latest technology to this production plant.

Skretting Australia will be able to meet the growing demand for high quality fish feed for salmon, trout, barramundi and tuna in both Australia and New Zealand following completion of the expansion and upgrade of the fish feed factory completed in 2011 for an amount of EUR 20 million. The market volume of fish feed in this region has grown by an average of 10% annually for the past ten years.

To enable organic growth in Norway, Nutreco announced an investment of EUR 66 million in production capacity expansion and upgrade of its fish feed plant in Averøy. The first expansion phase will be completed in 2012. Phase two will be ready for the 2013 high season and will enable Skretting to supply greater volumes of high quality feed for salmon and maintain its market leadership in Norway, where the market grew by an average of 9% per annum from 2006 to 2011.

Nutreco’s strong balance sheet and cash flow generation make it possible to finance further investments for organic growth in addition to growth by acquisitions. Nutreco manages acquisitions by building a pipeline of target companies that are at or close to Nutreco requirements. Furthermore, Nutreco has established a good basis in Brazil, Russia and South-East Asia through local presence with senior management.