Q1 revenues and profits fall for JBS
16/05/2017
During the three-month period, the group achieved sales of around $12 billion at current exchange rates and profits on those revenues of around $135 million. These figures represent declines year on year of 14.3% and 7.2% respectively.
Chief executive, Wesley Batista, said the group’s international divisions had enjoyed a good start to the year but that its business in its native South America “continue to face a challenging scenario”.
It’s in its South American division, JBS Mercosul, that the group includes the results of its leather business, JBS Couros. In the first quarter of 2017, JBS Mercosul achieved sales revenues of $2 billion and profits of just under $20 million, at current exchange rates.
Compared to the first quarter of 2016, these figures mean that revenues were down by 11.1%. Profits, however, fell by more than 90%.
JBS said on releasing the results that the figures had been adversely affected by a fall of 4.7% in the price of beef in the Brazilian market and of 16.4% in other markets in the region. It pointed out that its JBS Mercosul results had also suffered because of a fall in the value of the Brazilian real. On average, over the course of the first quarter of 2016, $1 was worth 3.91 reais. In contrast, the value of the dollar during the first quarter of 2017 was 3.14.
The group said the cost of production in JBS Mercosul rose by 2.5% between the first quarter of last year and the first quarter of 2017.
Share this story:
