Felda Hldgs posts higher profit in Jan-July

Felda Holdings Bhd, an associate company of Felda Global Group, recorded a higher pre-tax profit for the first seven months of 2011 of RM432 million compared with RM383 million in the same period of 2010.

In a statement today, Felda Global's president, Datuk Sabri Ahmad, said its upstream operations has recovered from the adverse effects of the El Nino phenomenon which affected the plantation industry late last year and early this year.

Felda Global Ventures Holdings Sdn Bhd's (FGV) pre-tax profit for the first six months of this year rose by 25 per cent to RM167.8 million from RM134 million achieved for the same period last year.

Turnover also rose to RM1.98 billion from RM1.57 billion.

For the financial year ended Dec 31, 2010, FGV and Felda Holdings reported pre-tax profits of RM366 million and RM760 million respectively.

The profits were derived from revenues of RM3.15 billion and RM14.9 billion for FGV and Felda Holdings respectively, compared with RM615 million and RM11.82 billion in 2009.

Sabri said these represented a five-fold revenue increase for FGV and 26 per cent rise for Felda Holdings.

He said the performance was mainly due to higher fresh fruit bunches production, better performance of downstream operations and higher crude palm oil and palm kernel oil prices.

"The strong 2010 results showed that the group’s forward agenda are sustaining earnings and enhancing value creation for its stakeholders, primarily the settler community.

"This is especially so in market segments where the group has clear leadership in terms of expertise and market share," he said.

Sabri said palm oil continued to form the mainstay of the group’s multi-crop business, contributing 56 per cent of revenue.

Apart from oil palm, Felda Global is also involved in agricultural research and development, rubber and cocoa products, fertiliser production, sugar refining and other services such as transport, bulking and engineering. -- Bernama